Desperation and Desire
by CTavanti
Summary: Only the dead have seen the end of war, and a lot of death surrounds the lives of Richard Grayson and Rachael Roth. The most violent circumstances imaginable will bring them together, but will they both survive it? AU, Rob/Rae.
1. Chapter 1: Enlisting

Disclaimer: I'm not making any money off of this so I don't need a disclaimer.

I can't help but wonder if this has ever been done before, I see High School drama type of stories but this is going to be different, A LOT different. No superpowers in this one, no fancy costumes or anything like that, just a bunch of normal people. This chapter is going to be a smidge on the short side, just a warm up.

* * *

Chapter 1: Enlisting

The past year had been cruel. His internship with a local, medium-sized shipping company had fallen apart when one of the shift managers framed him for a screw-up involving a shipment of radioactive material that resulted in the death of a truck driver and the quarantine of thirty or so innocent bystanders. His girlfriend left him after the incident and his school expelled him, he was cleared of any wrongdoing after a months-long investigation but the school would not reverse their decision and his ex had already found someone new. The catalyst however, was only four days ago: His parents and older brother were killed in a terrorist attack. The four had agreed to meet at a casual restaurant downtown, Richard was running late so his family decided to wait for him on the sidewalk when a white box van parked near them and exploded. The intended target is believed to be the courthouse across the street, the building was damaged and several people inside were injured, but the only fatalities were to people on the street, the Grayson's and five others.

Richard was laying awake in bed in the midst of the transition from sorrow to anger when he heard a knock at the door of his small, one-bedroom apartment in the lower-middle class suburbs. He ignored it at first, until he heard a male voice: "Mr. Grayson, it's Officer O'Toole, we have new information about Tuesday's incident."

That got his attention. Richard got up and answered the door wearing only pajama pants. "What is it?"

"ISIS claimed responsibility, we think the guy who did it was a sympathizer but hadn't taken any formal training." Richard stared at him blankly. "The bomb was essentially home-made, a plastic trash can full of black powder, he probably threw a lit match in there or something and closed the top." A staring contest ensued between the two, after nearly a minute of awkward silence the Officer spoke again. "Mr. Grayson I'm very sorry for your loss, I can't imagine the grief you must be going through and I won't insult you by saying I understand because I don't... But ultimately there isn't much else we can do, the guy who did it is dead and his leaders are half a world away, but you can take this number and call it anytime day or night if you need to talk to someone" he handed Richard a business card for a grief counselor. "Don't hesitate to call that number sir, try to enjoy the rest of your day" and with that the Officer left.

Richard managed to get himself dressed and stumble out to the nearby park. He walked for several minutes before sitting down on a bench, it was a warm day but not hot with a mild breeze out of the southwest, scattered clouds and moderate humity, the fresh air was doing him good. He lost track of how long he was sitting there, but eventually he saw two men dressed in the distinctive Marine dress uniform walk by slowly. They were chatting about their recent graduation from basic training, one of them made an offhand comment that caught Richard's attention... "My brother tried to get into the SEALs but he couldn't do it, BUD/S was too much for him, didn't have the motivation."

The other Marine chimed in "Navy SEALs are no joke man, one SEAL takes out more ragheads than our whole platoon ever will" the two moved beyond earshot.

One thing Richard did have going for him was he was in shape. After the fiasco at his internship his time freed up and he spent most of it at the gym, while not quite at Iron Man level, he was head and shoulders above most of his peers in terms of physical conditioning. He let out a heavy sigh, pulled out his smartphone and googled "Navy SEAL requirements." After about twenty minutes of research, the twenty-two year old put his phone away and headed for the local Navy recruiting office across town.

* * *

Rachael was on a high, she had just turned nineteen yesterday, she had been given a car for her high school graduation four months prior and she was about to go on her third date with a guy she liked a lot. As she was putting her last bit of makeup on her father, Travis, appeared in the doorway to the bathroom. "I take it things are going well with this new guy?"

Rachael let out a small chuckle "Yes dad, things are going very well" she put her cosmetics away and headed to her bedroom.

"Have you told him yet?" Travis asked, following his daughter.

"Nope, going to tell him today" Rachael replied, picking up her purse and going through it.

"Is he going to be okay with it?"

She paused for a moment and looked at her father, "why wouldn't he be? And if he isn't then what am I supposed to do about it?"

"I think the question is more what is HE going to do about it."

Rachael gave a smug look, "dad, you didn't raise a victim" she said as she placed her Beretta Nano into the concealment pocket of her purse.

Travis smiled and turned to leave "have a nice night" the retired Marine Sergeant said before disappearing down the hallway...

... The date went well, a casual dinner with pleasant conversation and a few laughs, the quintessential good date. They had just ordered dessert when Rachael decided bring up the topic she and her father had spoken about earlier. "So I have some news" she said cheerfully.

"Oh?" her date asked with a smile.

"Tomorrow I'm going to enlist in the Army, I'm going to be a pilot!" She said, grinning ear to ear.

Her date's smile faded quickly. "What kind of pilot?"

"Helicopter, Going to fly those Apache's!"

The man on the other end of the table sat back. "So you want to kill people?"

Rachael flinched at the comment and looked at him quizzically. "They're the ones trying to kill us, they're the ones who declared war on us..."

"Because we antagonized them" the man interrupted, "If we just reasoned with them and treated them with respect instead of slaughtering them in droves we wouldn't be having this problem."

Rachael paused, then got up from her chair. "You want to reason with them? Go ahead, you'll be the next star of an execution video on the internet" she left, highly offended.

Travis was watching TV when Rachael came in. "You're home a little earlier than I expected."

"Yeah well, things went unexpectedly" Rachael said.

"He didn't like you going into the Army?"

After a sigh, Rachael replied; "Nope."

Travis paused and thought for a moment. He was unsurprised at what had happened but didn't stop him from feeling bad about it. "So what now?" He asked.

"Same as before, he's just not in the picture."

* * *

"So you're out looking for some payback then?" The Navy recruiter queried.

"You could say that" Richard replied.

"And you think you can pass the PST?"

"I know I can" Richard said with the utmost confidence.

The recruiter smiled smugly. "Then just sign these forms and we'll get you started."

* * *

"That's a tall mountain to climb miss Roth, are you sure you're ready for it?" The Army recruiter asked.

"I was born ready" Rachael replied.

The recruiter retrieved papers from a filing cabinet. "If that's the case, there's some extra paperwork to do, once you complete basic training you're going to have to take our rotary wing flight training, you're not going to see deployment for a while."

"I understand."

The recruiter smiled, "great, then let's get started..."


	2. Chapter 2: BUDS and Boot Camp

Chapter 2: BUD/S and Boot Camp

* * *

Richard was wondering if he'd bit off more than he could chew, and it wasn't the first time in the four weeks he'd been in Basic Underwater Demolitions/SEALs pre-training in Coronado California. It was day three of Hell Week, he'd slept around two hours since Monday, not all of them in a row, and he was in the middle of one of the many, many runs he and the dwindling number of recruits went on.

"This is not my limit..." Richard mumbled to himself, sweat dripping into his mouth. "I am not down yet..."

Two more days passed complete with another ninety or so minutes of sleep. They were on another run, Richard being in the middle of the pack, but dangerously close to the back end, only about twenty recruits remained from the original class of almost eighty. The man in front of Richard fell, tripping him and another recruit, Richard went to get back up but his body failed him, he told his arms to push him up but they simply did not respond, he let his face hit the dirt in exhaustion.

"Get the fuck up!" The BUD/s instructor yelled, Richard didn't respond. "Get your ass up and back in formation now! Or else ring that bell and bring your panty-ass home!"

Richard's eyes opened wide, a sense of determination washed over him as he moved his arms into a pushup position. With a long, loud scream, Richard was slowly able to push himself off the ground with his violently trembling arms and bring himself to his feet, he turned and saw the other two men who had fallen had not done the same.

"Get back in formation now" the instructor ordered in a calm, but very firm tone. Richard took one more short look at the other two men then began running towards the group that was a hundred yards ahead of him now.

* * *

Rachael struggled to pull a fortieth, and final, sit-up out of her body then quickly let herself go limp laying on the ground.

"Taking a nap after the warmup Roth?" The female drill instructor asked, Rachael's eyes opened wide. "Yeah, get off the ground and over to the wall, now!"

Rachael had to roll herself over to get up, her abdomen felt like it was on fire. "Yes Ma'am!"

"Get up that wall Tempest! Ladies first and all, you got men waiting on you!" The drill instructor yelled. Garth Tempest, a young man Rachael had befriended over the past six weeks was in the process of climbing the stereotypical rope wall. When they had first met he had long black hair which Rachael was extremely disappointed to see shaved off, but that was part of the process as she was sporting a buzz cut herself. Garth made it over the wall a few seconds later. "Your turn Roth let's go!" Rachael grabbed the rope and put her right foot against the wall, she tried to pull herself up but her foot slipped off the wall. "Kick off those high heels and get up that wall!" Rachael tried again, gripping lower on the rope and placing her foot higher on the wall, shifting her weight more to her arms which seemed to do the trick, it was very difficult, but she was able to get up the wall and over it, eventually.

* * *

Sitting in a classroom was never one of Richard's favorite things, until he entered BUD/S that is. It was one of the very few times he had to relax and give his body a chance to recover, at least somewhat from the intense training he'd been undergoing. The instructors were going over what this new exercise they would be performing in the pool, something about doing basic maintenance on your diving equipment while underwater. A colleague took this opportunity to quietly introduce himself.

"Realistically how much water are we going to be dealing with in the middle east?" The redheaded man sitting next to Richard questioned.

Richard paused and diverted his eyes, toward the men, barely moving his head. "I think it's more to do with general operations rather than the specific mission."

After a sigh, the other man spoke again "You're probably right, I'm Roy by the way, Roy Harper" he extended his hand to shake, below the bodies of the men in front of them so the instructors wouldn't see.

Richard hesitated slightly, but shook his hand "Richard Grayson."

"Well since you two like holding hands I guess you want to be paired up" an instructor blared from the side of the room and slightly behind the them, causing the whole classroom to turn and stare at the two men.

* * *

Rachael shouldered the M16 rifle, put the red chevron reticle of the Advanced Combat Optical Gunsight on target and fired, her shot hit low left.

"You're supposed to aim for center mass, not his right hip, do it again" the male instructor ordered.

Rachael took aim again, adjusting her point of aim to the high right and fired again, this time the shot was perfect with elevation, but off to the right. "This ammo is terrible, it has no consistency at all!" She complained.

The instructor stood up from his seat behind the spotting scope and grabbed the rifle out of Rachael's hands. He shouldered it, aimed downrange and let off ten shots in fairly rapid succession, all of his shots hit slightly left, but his group was less than two and a half inches on the target one hundred yards away. "I don't like excuses Roth, drop and give me twenty."

Rachael groaned in embarrassment, she slowly got on the ground and began doing pushups.

* * *

Richard had been waiting for this moment for six months, six grueling months of pure hell. He was weak, his entire body ached and not just a little bit, but this was it, he had completed his final task at BUD/S, which was to place explosive charges on a handful of underwater targets, and was now just waiting for the show. Seconds felt like hours as he sat on the beach with the other eighteen remaining recruits, waiting for the fireworks. He had just begun to lose patience when a loud explosion occurred, causing him to jump. The sight was spectacular, six massive plumes of water all shooting up into the sky a good hundred feet or more, it brought new meaning to the phrase "ending with a bang..."

... The time was at hand, cleaned up and dressed in his white dress uniform Richard sat in the second row on the last seat to the left as a SEAL Captain gave an inspiring speech about the accomplishment he and the other recruits had achieved. "We live in a world where mediocrity is frequently rewarded, and those who rise above, who refuse to accept it and become something more are observed with no small amount of curiosity, but with amazement..." Richard looked around, more people were at the ceremony than he had anticipated, not that he didn't welcome the company. "... You nineteen young men have joined an elite group very few earn the privilege of being a part of, while this is only the first step, I have no doubt we will see great things from each and every one of you in the time to come... Welcome to the team."

The celebration was far quieter for Richard than it was for his colleagues, having no family to celebrate his graduation with he opted to remain seated, the mixed emotions were almost overwhelming.

"Hey man" Roy said as he sat down next to Richard "I remember what you told me about your family, you're welcome to join mine for dinner tonight." Richard looked at him. "You earned it, and you deserve some good company."

"I..." Richard began, caught completely off balance by the offer.

"Would love to? Awesome, let's go then."

* * *

Rachael embraced her mother and father, ecstatic at her graduation from basic training. "I'm so proud of you Rae" Travis said with a massive smile.

"I love you dad!" Rachael said, barely able to control her emotions. It took quite a while to pull herself together, but once she did she excused herself to chat with Garth and another recruit she had met, Karen Beecher.

"This has got to be the biggest moment of my life!" Garth exclaimed as Rachael joined the conversation.

"Hell yeah, I feel like I'm on top of the world right now!" Karen added.

"I second that!" Rachael said, "But you and I still have a long way to go..."

Karen turned to face the slightly shorter girl, "I know, but I'm amped up and ready to take on anything!"

* * *

The past few weeks had been a mixed bag of events, between bar hopping with Roy and visiting his family's graves, Richard found himself in a state of disorientation. BUD/S had given him something to focus on but now that it was over his mind wandered, had he made the right choice? Done the right thing? He was scheduled for a flight back to Coronado that left later in the day, but he took a moment to visit the sight of the explosion.

At first glance it was as if nothing had happened on this innocent enough street corner. The courthouse was repaired seamlessly as was the road, sidewalks and restaurant, until he took a moment to really look hard. A potted plant stood next to the door to the restaurant and small blood stains were noticeable on the leaves if one were looking for them. Richard broke one of the leaves off and stared at it, was that blood from his brother? One of his parents? One of the other innocent bystanders? Contemplation made him realize it didn't matter, the evil wrought on this corner eight months ago was inexcusable and had to be answered for. He put the leaf in his pocket and headed for the airport.

* * *

"To think, we lived across town from each other and never knew it" Karen said.

"I guess that's what they mean by it's a small world" Rachael said as she took a bite of her food.

"What made you want to become a pilot?" Karen asked.

Rachael swallowed her food and smiled. "Five years ago, helicopter tour of the Grand Canyon with the family, it was unbelievable, a sight you can't get from a fixed wing, I was hooked from then on."

Karen laughed. "I know the feeling, my uncle had a helicopter he took me up in a bunch of times, you don't feel any freer than when you're up there."

Rachael nodded in agreement. "And we're in the same class for rotary wing, ready for that, partner?"

Karen quirked her head. "You sure we're going to be partners?"

Rachael shrugged. "No, but my dad might be able to pull a string or two, we'll see."

"Daddy's girl" Karen teased with a laugh.

"You're not?"

"Well... I don't have a bad relationship with my father but I wish we were closer" Karen explained sheepishly.

Rachael sensed deception, but decided not to press the issue. "Ready to get behind those controls?"

Karen took the out "I better be, we start tomorrow."


	3. Chapter 3: SEALs and Pilots

Chapter 3: SEALs and Pilots

* * *

"Over the years new weapons platforms have been developed to meet the requirements of the modern warfighter..." The new instructor explained, picking up a futuristic-looking rifle from the table behind him. "This is the Fabrique Nationale Special Forces Combat Assault Rifle Heavy, or if you like abbreviations, the FN SCAR-H, or if you like soldier terms, your rifle." It was an interesting weapon, one Richard had never seen before, it was tan in color and shared several visual similarities with the M4 Carbine platform he had been familiarized with in phase 3 of BUD/S, but was distinctly different in many ways as well. "This rifle fires the 7.62x51 NATO round out of a sixteen inch barrel using a gas piston automatic action both full and semi-auto..." Richard was intrigued, he owned a Ruger 10-22 that he had some fun with occasionally, but his only experience with a 7.62x51, or as it is more commonly known in the civilian world, .308, was out of his grandfathers old Remington 700, if this rifle was anything like his grandfathers he didn't see how anybody would think it was a good idea to put it into an infantry rifle.

Once out on the range and Richard had a hold of the gun, he was shocked at how lightweight it was, despite a strange looking scope on top of it, which he was told was a Variable Combat Optical Gunsight made by a company called Trijicon, it weighed less than the Remington 700 platform, only equaling that weight once a full twenty-round magazine had been inserted. "Let's see it Grayson, put a three shot group on the number four target" the instructor ordered.

Somewhat nervously Richard shouldered the rifle, put his sight on the appropriate target and pulled the trigger, he was immediately startled by the how loud the rifle was. "Holy shit this thing is loud" he thought out loud.

"That's what muzzle brakes do, directing the gases to the sides also directs the noise to the sides" The instructor explained.

"Muzzle brake?" Richard queried.

The instructor looked at him as if he'd just said two plus two equals five. "Yeah, that thing on the end of the barrel? That's a muzzle brake, not a flash hider like you typically see on M4's and other intermediate cartridge rifles, it reduces recoil by diverting expelled gases to the sides." Richard took a moment to look at the device in question, it looked like a small tube with jagged holes ripped, not cut, out of the sides. "We don't have all day, put those other two rounds downrange."

Richard shouldered the rifle again, aimed and fired, expecting the noise this time he was now surprised by how light the recoil was, something that escaped his notice on the first shot. "How the hell does this have so little recoil? This feels like something a lot smaller than a .308..."

"Newer, superior design, you notice it doesn't rattle like the M4 does either, it's just an overall better weapon, now get that last shot down there and you better put it right in between the first two."

Richard shouldered, aimed and fired again.

* * *

Rachael was getting mixed results from the simulator, sometimes it felt too sensitive and other times it didn't feel sensitive enough, it was making it difficult to perform the maneuvers she was instructed to. "Turn left one-eight-zero" the instructor ordered. Rachael pushed the collective left and the simulator responded as she expected, but as she approached her desired heading and pulled back right to correct her trajectory the simulator seemed sluggish, it didn't "right" itself as quickly as it should have. "You got a lot of work to do if you want to have any hope of passing this course" the instructor said, losing patience.

"It doesn't feel like it's me, control input response doesn't feel consistent, I bank left once and it responds exactly like I want it to, I bank left again later and suddenly I'm nearly turning around."

The instructor was not amused "Inconsistencies like that can happen in the field and you need to be able to compensate for them, if you think these things are bad you should have tried flying the helos during Korea."

Rachael shook her head slightly, are these helos just that haphazardly built? Poorly maintained? Is the instructor programming the simulator to give her these troubles? All questions she was left to ponder as she continued her training. Over time, she was able to adapt, if she told the virtual helicopter to do something and it was either too slow or too quick to do it, she responded appropriately. "About time we saw some progress Roth."

Begrudgingly, Rachael responded "Thank you sir."

* * *

"Ready?" Roy asked.

"Do it" Richard replied.

Roy used a handheld battering ram to break a door in, Richard immediately entered the room and moved to the right, firing at a cutout of a man with an AK-47 who was standing behind a cutout of an unarmed woman. Before he was done firing three more of his teammates had entered the room and covered the left and center. "Clear on the right" Richard called out.

"Clear on the left" another said.

"Clear on center" said someone else.

The group paused in place for a few seconds, sometimes a hidden target would pop out from behind a piece of furniture or an adjacent room as part of the exercise. In this case, no such target appeared, so the group walked back out.

Two instructors who were observing the exercise walked into the room, Richard could see they headed right for the two cardboard cutouts to examine them, after less than thirty seconds they came back out.

"Who fired their weapon?" One of them asked.

"I did sir" Richard replied.

"Did you shoot the woman?"

"No sir."

"Why not?"

Richard took a short breath. "She posed no immediate threat sir."

The instructor quirked an eyebrow "you sure about that?"

Richard hesitated, "yes sir."

The man asking the question looked at the other who had so far been silent, then turned back to face Richard. "Good call Grayson... Move out! Next door!"

Richard smiled, his confidence was building and he was finally starting to feel more comfortable in his role, more like he belonged there. It was his turn to breech, he took the battering ram from Roy and busted down the door.

* * *

After her first live flight, Rachael was relieved that the controls were much more consistently responsive than the simulator, but also annoyed that she now had to readjust once again. She was on her sixth training flight, but it was the first where she was paired up with a trainee gunner, who happened to be Karen Beecher. "So did daddy pull some strings?" Karen asked.

"He didn't have to, when I asked him about that he said the instructors talk to each other to see which recruits work well with which other recruits, they don't just pair people up randomly, we went to the same basic training class and developed a relationship, we trust each other, makes for a good partnership."

Karen smiled. "How do you know he didn't just say that to make you feel good about it and he didn't make a few calls anyway?"

Rachael shrugged, "I guess I don't, but I trust my dad so I believe him... Coming up on the hostiles!" She turned the nose of the helo to face the left, but banked right so as to keep it heading in the same direction. Karen hit the triggers for the side-mounted miniguns and sprayed the side of a building with a hail of bullets as the helo strafed by. The screen in front of her displayed around two dozen red diamonds meant to represent hostile forces and she watched as they disappeared one by one. Five seconds later all the diamonds were gone and she let off the triggers.

"Target one neutralized!" Karen called out.

Rachael pointed the nose of the aircraft back in the direction it was going, "Coming up on target two!"

Karen's screen now showed red outlines of two tanks, she tagged both of them with the computer and fired two missiles simultaneously, both hitting their marks perfectly. "Target two neutralized!"

"Negative! Enemy APC ten o'clock!" Rachael called out.

Karen immediately adjusted her screen's point of view and found the APC, tagged it and sent a third missile, destroying it. "Okay, NOW target two neutralized" Karen said.

"Moving to target three!" Rachael reported as she banked right at a near ninety degree angle.

Karen zoomed out on her screen for a wider view of the target area, about a dozen or so red diamonds and two tank outlines scattered throughout an area the size of a large sports stadium. "Rae, circle strafe counterclockwise!"

"Got it!" Rachael replied as she increased her altitude to about two hundred feet. Pointing the nose of the helo down she banked right into a circular pattern around the perimeter of the target area.

Karen tagged one of the tanks while using the left mounted minigun to engage two diamonds that were next to each other, once she fired her missile the two diamonds were gone. Switching to the right minigun she engaged another two diamonds that were next to each other while tagging the second tank. After firing a second missile she used the right minigun to engage a single diamond that was close to the previous two which had since disappeared. With both tanks out of commission and five red diamonds gone Karen assessed the situation, she counted eight remaining diamonds and they were moving, all of them seeming to go in a different direction. "Rae, center us over the target area!"

"Got it!" Rachael tightened the circular pattern she was flying in until the helo was over the center of the area. Karen flipped a switch and several bombs started launching from the sides of the helo in all directions. She watched as four of the diamonds disappeared then flipped the switch again sending another barrage of bombs down, three more diamonds disappeared.

"We got a straggler, turn us to heading three-one-zero!"

"Got it!" The helo spun almost completely around to the desired heading and Rachael pointed the nose down.

"Goodbye" Karen said as she fired both miniguns simultaneously at the last diamond, watching it disappear. "Target three neutralized!"

"Good work, I think... Heading back to base" Rachael said.

After landing, Rachael and Karen reported to the training office for an evaluation of their performance in the exercise. "I have to say ladies, that was an impressive run..." Said the older male instructor, "Most trainees don't get all the diamonds in one pass on target one and only about half catch onto the APC on target two... Target three you did it backwards from most guys, most guys use the cluster bombs first to thin the numbers then to a circle strafe, you did the circle strafe first and then cluster bombs."

"Was that wrong sir?" Karen asked.

The instructor shook his head, "nah, your time on that target was on par with our competitive standards, we don't much care how you do it as long as you do it within the timeframe... You're well on your way to becoming a very valuable air asset."

The two women made triumphant fists and proudly proclaimed "yes!"

* * *

Over twenty months of training had come down to this, Richard was now a full-fledged Trident-wearing Navy SEAL and he was waiting in a briefing room where he was going to meet his Master Chief for the first time. He had met the man very briefly prior but didn't catch his name, he was a very large man built like the Hulk, Richard wondered after the first meeting how all the enemies he had faced had missed such a large target. The waiting didn't last very long as he entered the room.

"Good evening gentlemen, for those of you who haven't met me, I'm Master Chief Victor Stone, I'll be your lead in the field..." He picked up a remote and pulled down a white nylon screen as someone dimmed the lights. "Now I'll come up and meet everybody once we're enroute to the insertion point so save your introductions... The mission to raid this structure..." A series of pictures of a three-story building appeared on the white screen. "We believe it is one of the safe houses of an ISIS General and British citizen named Slade Wilson..." A picture of a masked man who Richard assumed to be Wilson appeared on the screen. "We don't have any pictures of him without the mask but that doesn't matter, we don't believe he's occupying this particular safe house at this time, the objective is to gather intel, computers, files, anything that might give us information on his whereabouts, of course a picture of him without the mask wouldn't hurt either... Anybody you encounter in that structure is to be considered hostile, this is your first mission and it should be fairly simple, exfil will be the same way you went in just in reverse, any questions?" Nobody had any. "Alright, can I get a Mr. Mark Logan?"

"Yes sir?" Said the man who was sitting to Richard's right.

"You and your spotter are going to inserted here..." Victor said as an aerial photo appeared on the screen with a blue circle, red circle and yellow circle, he used a laser pointer to point to the blue circle. "Just west of the structure which is circled in yellow, you are the blue team, Mr. Ryuku Orsono?"

"Yes sir?" Said an Asian man seated two rows ahead of Richard.

"You and your spotter will be inserted here..." Victor pointed to the red circle "to the south of the structure, you are the red team, any questions?" Again nobody had any. Alright then, let's weapon up and move out!"


	4. Chapter 4: First Mission, Richard

Chapter 4: First Mission, Richard

* * *

Insertion was by a convoy of Humvees provided by the Army, which stopped about half a mile south of the target structure. The Master Chief had taken the time to talk with each SEAL personally along the way, or at least as personal as he could get over a radio since most of the team was in other vehicles. Richard learned a lot about the man, his twelve years of experience and the various conflicts he'd been involved in, he felt that he could put his trust in Victor's leadership. It was the middle of the night and cooler than Richard expected it to be.

Once out of the Humvees, it was time to walk. "We don't want to attract attention, keep things low and quiet" Victor ordered. "Red team, check in."

"Red team checking in, ready" Richard heard over his earpiece.

"Blue team check in."

"Blue team checking in, ready."

"You see anything suspicious let us know, weapons cold, Harper, you're on point."

Roy turned to look at Victor with a startled expression, but quickly regained his composure "yes sir" he replied as he moved north down the street, keeping up against the structures on the left and ducking below windows. Richard was behind Roy, who stopped at a corner. Doing a "quick peek" around it Roy signaled for Victor to come to the front of the group. Victor crouched down next to Roy without a word. "Single military age male ten yards down, he's armed" Roy whispered.

Victor did his own quick peek. "He's facing away from us, take him out." Roy hesitated, but moved to aim his rifle, Victor stopped him. "Not with that, it'll alert every hostile within a mile, you got to do this hand to hand." Roy lowered his rifle and pulled out his knife, but hesitated, Victor picked up on it right away. "Listen, you got to do this, remember your training."

Roy gulped and gripped his knife firmly, staying low and keeping his footsteps light he snuck up behind the man, used his left hand to cover his mouth and stabbed him in the base of the spine with his knife, twisting the blade once it had penetrated as deep as possible. The enemy didn't even have a chance to resist, as soon as Roy twisted the knife he went limp, falling into Roy's arms.

"Got to get him off the street so nobody sees the body" Victor ordered over the radio. Roy complied by dragging the body into an alley to the left of where the man was standing, then moving back to where his teammates were. "Good, you okay?" Roy nodded hesitantly. "You good to stay on point?"

"I, I..." Roy stuttered, "I'd rather not sir..."

"Grayson, you're on point" Victor ordered. Richard looked at opening to the alley Roy's kill was now laying in, then crossed the street to the next structure.

"Red team has eyes on a vehicle moving south on your road, twenty seconds to encounter" Ryuku reported over everyone's earpieces.

"Out of sight, everybody!" Victor whispered. Most of the SEALs ducked down the side road where Roy had killed the first man but Richard and the man right behind him opted to duck into a doorway. They didn't enter the building but concealed themselves in the archway and waited, before long an SUV drove by. The vehicle passed Richard and the rest of his team without incident. "Form up, continue forward."

The rest of the hike to the target structure was uneventful, which was another set of mixed feelings for Richard. He had joined to kill terrorists but now that he was finally here he had doubts. He now knew first hand how different it is to sit in the comfort of your home and say you would have no issue killing terrorists by the thousands and actually being there with a rifle in your hands, a handgun and knife on your hip and orders to raid a building full of hostiles. He approached the south entrance to the structure and listened, there was no noise coming from inside so he examined the door, it was heavy duty and was going to require something with a bit more power than their battering ram to break open. Richard extended a fist and opened it quickly, indicating he wanted to use an explosive charge to breach the door. Victor tapped the shoulder of a SEAL and sent him to the front of the group, the man crouched down in front of the door and pulled out a brick of C4. This C4 was packaged differently, it was surrounded on all sides except one by a titanium shell meant to direct the blast in one direction. The SEAL peeled off the paper on the one exposed side and stuck it to the door, he then connected the detonator to it. He moved to the opposite side of the door and turned away from it, as did Richard, then turned the switch. After the explosion Richard turned back and kicked the door in, entered the building and moved to the right, he immediately saw a man rushing to get up from a couch, then saw the AK-47 on the table near him. Everything from that point on went into slow motion, Richard put his sights center mass on the man and pulled the trigger, he released the trigger and pulled it again, released it and pulled it a third time. He didn't even hear his three shots or feel the recoil of the gun, but he did see the man fall on top of the table, lifeless. "Clear on the right!" He called out involuntarily, startling himself. Time sped back up to normal and he found himself scanning the right side of the room.

Victor entered the room. "You four clear the kitchen" he said pointing to a huddled up group, "Harper, Grayson, right flank, everybody else straight ahead!"

Richard and Roy didn't think nor hesitate, it was as if their bodies weren't their own, running on some kind of autopilot. They entered the room on the right and found it to be empty, as they moved to the next room to the north they heard gunfire coming from the center hallway, seven shots total from two firearms, the two men didn't know if it was two of their colleagues shooting at the same time, or one of their fellow SEALs exchanging fire with an enemy, but by the small number of shots they knew it was not two enemies firing on their friends. The second room they entered was also empty so they linked up with the other group in the main hallway, seeing the four other SEALs who had cleared the kitchen catching up. "You six start up the stairs, we're right behind you" Victor ordered. Roy was third in line to go up the stairs, Richard was last, gunfire came from the top of the stairs as the SEAL on point engaged an enemy in the second floor hallway. As the group moved up the stairs Richard watched as Roy kicked a door in and brandished his rifle around the room, he stepped out without firing a shot. As the two other men in front of him walked past the door Richard, for no obvious reason, felt compelled to look into the room Roy had cleared, just as he did he saw a small boy, not a day older than five years, crawl out from under the bed and raise a pistol at him, without hesitation, Richard put two rounds into the boy's chest and watched him drop to the floor. Without lowering his rifle, his mouth sat agape and his eyes were wide, staring at his second victim. This was different from an adult reaching for a rifle, even though the boy had pointed a gun at him it was still unnerving to have to put down a child.

"Snap out of it!" Victor yelled as he smacked Richard's on the side of the head, "keep going!"

Richard jumped at the physical contact, but it brought his head back into the game, he turned and started down the hallway, having to step over a dead woman laying a pool of blood.

"Blue team has tangos inbound from the west, two trucks!" Richard heard Mark say over the earpiece.

"Red team, blue team weapons hot, weapons hot!" Victor yelled.

"Blue team copies engaging!" Mark replied.

"Red team copies, no contact" Ryuku said.

The team started up the stairs but the SEAL on point stopped before reaching the top, he pulled out a flashbang grenade and tossed it into the top floor. Everybody closed their eyes and covered their ears, two seconds later the grenade went off and the SEALs moved upstairs. When Richard got to the top he saw that the whole top floor was an open loft with computers and computer parts all over, no hostiles were in the room. Once Victor made it to the top of the stairs he stopped and looked around, "jackpot" he mumbled.

"Red team has contact closing in from the north, two SUV's!" Ryuku exclaimed.

"Take 'em out red team, blue team, status" Victor responded.

"Two tangos down, three more enroute to your location" Mark replied.

"Copy that..." Victor said "Grayson, Harper, Simmons, gather up every computer and hard drive you can find, everybody else downstairs, cover all entrances!" The three SEALs and the Master Chief began gathering up everything they could carry as the rest of the team went back down to the first floor. It wasn't long before they heard gunfire, a lot of gunfire. Victor had placed four computers and a dozen or more harddrives into his backpack. "Whatever you got take it, leave the rest!"

Richard got up and turned to leave but caught something out of the corner of his eye, it was an external harddrive with a brown X drawn on it with some Arabic, he shoved it between his chest and armor plate and followed his teammates back outside. The gunfire had died down once Richard was outside, but he turned to his left upon seeing movement, it was an enemy soldier about to fire on him, he got his rifle halfway up when a large puff of red appeared and the man dropped where he stood. "All hostiles eliminated" Ryuku said over the headset.

"Negitive you got APC's inbound from the east, four of them... And a tank! Get out of there! Less than a minute to contact!" Mark yelled over the radio.

"MOVE OUT!" Victor yelled as he and the team started sprinting south down the road they came in on. After a block of running Victor diverted to the right, then left into an alley and stopped. "Fall in, everybody here?" Everybody looked around, Richard didn't notice anybody missing and nor did anybody else. "Snipers, status."

"Enemy armor just arriving at target structure" Mark replied. "They're stopped, enemies disembarking... Holy shit."

"What?" Victor queried.

Ryuku chimed in "You guys got out of there just in time..."

Mark came back on, "There's got to be at least fifty enemy soldiers down there, and each of those APC's has a fifty cal mounted on top..."

Victor looked over his team and took a breath. "Weapons cold, we get out of here quiet or we don't get out of here at all."

The remainder of the exfiltration was uneventful, they piled back into the convoy of Army Humvees, Richard, Roy, Victor and the third SEAL who gathered hardware, Simmons, in the lead vehicle.

"Find anything of particular interest boys?" Victor asked.

Roy and Simmons shook their heads, Richard pulled the last harddrive he collected out of his improvised pocket. "I found this, was the only one I saw with any kind of markings on it."

Victor took hold of the object and examined it. "Hm... Could be nothing, could be what brings all of ISIS down... Good work, all of you."

"Thank you sir" the trio said semi-simultaneously.

Victor turned to the driver, who was Army, not Navy and much less a SEAL. "Now sir you understand anything that gets said in here can't be repeated right?"

"I understand sir" the man replied.

"Good..." Victor nodded, "I didn't catch your name..."

"Corporal Garth Tempest... At your service sir."


	5. Chapter 5: First Mission, Rachael

Chapter 5: First Mission, Rachael

* * *

Rachael and Karen had become nearly inseparable over the last two years, there were few places one of them traveled to on base without the other and they had even met each others families. But today was the beginning of a new a chapter for their relationship, today was their first live mission, something both of them were nervous about. They waited in the briefing room with nine other pilot/gunner pairs to be informed of their mission. They seemed to be waiting a while, but eventually a man and a woman walked into the room.

"Sorry to keep you waiting ladies and gentlemen, the briefing for the utility pilots wasn't supposed to take that long..." The woman said.

The man spoke, "I think I've met most everybody here but in case I missed anybody I'm Sergeant Isiah Crockett, this is Second Lieutenant Kori Anders."

"Thank you Sergeant..." The Lieutenant began. "I understand this is going to be everybody's first mission, with that being the case I don't want anybody to feel they have to go above and beyond, there is an old saying in aviation, 'there are old pilots and there are bold pilots, but there are no old, bold pilots, because they die,' while everybody here has accepted a certain level of risk there is no reason to increase that risk anymore than need be, does everybody understand?" Most nodded in agreement, some agreed verbally. "Good, now that that's out of the way..." She pulled down a white screen as the Sergeant dimmed the lights. "The mission is to escort and support a battalion of Marines as they take back the city of Tikrit, this is expected to be the largest battle of the war so far, you'll be sharing the skies with Blackhawk's, drone's, A-10's, Lancer's and a couple AC-130's, the skies are going to be busy to say the least."

"Ever since the inauguration of our new President four months ago we've been much more aggressive against ISIS, we're not just throwing rocks at them like we were with the last guy, this will be the first major offensive move on our part, and it's going to be big." Sergeant Crockett informed. "You have authorization to engage enemy combatants at will but be warned, unless the Marines paint a target for you it's going to be very difficult to tell friend from foe from the sky, do not engage unless you are absolutely positive you're shooting at the enemy."

Rachael was having difficulty digesting what she was being told, an entire class of newbies are supposed to provide air support for a full scale invasion of a city?

"Any questions?" The Sergeant asked.

Rachael wanted to question the wisdom of sending them on this mission but she held her tongue.

"Good, move out!" Lieutenant Anders ordered.

* * *

Rachael was going through her pre-flight checklist, there were quite a few more Blackhawk's than she had anticipated, she counted thirty of them, each being packed full of Marines, this was going to be a very large invasion. It was then that Karen climbed aboard. "Stop for coffee?" The pilot asked.

"Hell no, latte, I got one for you too" Karen replied sarcastically.

"Awesome, I'll get it if we get back..."

"If?" Karen queried.

Rachael paused and turned in her seat as best she could to face her friend. "A bunch of rookie pilots on a full scale invasion, doesn't that seem a little weird to you?"

Karen shrugged. "Something has to be your first mission I guess."

"Yeah but, don't you think a better first mission would be like... Air support for a team of Navy SEALs or something?"

Karen shrugged again. "Air support is air support."

Rachael turned around, shaking her head. "Buckle up, here we go."

* * *

The flight plan was very simple, a twenty five minute flight to the north side of Tikrit. The teams had been informed that the fixed wing aircraft were running behind schedule but the call was made to start the party without them. Late in the flight Rachael noticed a large convoy of friendly APC's heading for the city they were about to attack. "God Damn..." Rachael muttered, "How many Marines do we have?" The Blackhawk's descended to drop off their troops, some landing just outside the city limits while others dropped their teams on rooftops, the land based vehicles also stopped right at the city limit to drop off their soldiers. The top floor of a taller building near the insertion point blew up before the Blackhawk's got back in the air. "What the hell?" Rachael wondered out loud.

"I heard the Lieutenant telling the Sergeant that some buildings had been targeted as known enemy encampments, the drones are hitting them." Karen informed.

"Well the drones might want to do a better, job, there's still a guy standing in that structure!" Rachael said.

Karen zoomed in on her screen, since the area hadn't been tagged, no red diamonds appeared to expose enemy positions, so Karen was forced to find the enemy the old fashion way. It took a moment, but she did pick up on the surviving terrorist, she blasted him with the left minigun.

"Good catch Red Five" Kori said over the radio. Rachael banked right, turning the Apache around completely on a wide angle. She backtracked for a short distance before turning around again. On the second flyby Rachael flew low and observed the activity on the ground, there didn't seem to be much in the way of fighting, an enemy soldier or two here and there but little else, hardly something that constituted the amount of support the Marines had. Kori's voice came over the radio again "all units be advised, enemy heavy armor inbound!"

"Heavy armor?" Rachael queried just before a tank shell whizzed past just in front of her helo, the shot was so close it cause the chopper to yaw right. "WWHOA!" Rachael shrieked, she immediately increased her altitude and banked right again, heading away from the city.

"Hey Rae we got to get back there!" Karen yelled.

"I know, I know! but we have to get a bead on that tank!"

Sergeant Crockett came over the radio, "Marines are making their way further into the city, they've been ordered paint any heavy armor they come across, red team engage at will."

Rachael turned around once again. "Come on Marines, give us a target..." She mumbled to herself. She came in low using the buildings for cover, passing so low over them that anybody on the rooftops would almost have to duck. Before long, Karen's screen picked up a red outline of a tank.

"Rae, two-four-five, eighteen hundred yards!" The gunner said.

"Got it!" Rachael replied.

"Wait, scratch that..." Karen said as another outline appeared on her screen, this one much closer. "One-four-zero, eight hundred yards!" Rachael banked left to heading one-forty and climbed to two hundred feet. Karen had already locked on and was just waiting for an unobstructed shot at the enemy tank, as soon as it came, she fired a missile, destroying it. "Two-nine-five Rae!"

"Got it!" Rachael turned right and headed towards the other tank but before Karen could get a lock on it, it blew up. "Looks like the fixed wings are here."

"Better late than never" Karen added.

"Red Five we just had a call for some help from above and you're the closest, heading two-one-five, six hundred yards, Marines are pinned down and need you to thin the enemy numbers" Isiah called over the radio.

"Red Five copies, enroute to target, thirty seconds out" Rachael replied as she directed the helo in the appropriate direction. Karen could already see thirty or more red diamonds at the target area, they were spread out fairly wide, but still clustered together enough for a strafing run.

"Damn, got to cut those numbers down a bit..." Karen thought out loud. Rachael pointed the helo towards the enemy position and banked left to keep them moving, but also to give her gunner a clear shot. Karen hit both miniguns as the chopper passed, she noticed not all the red diamonds were disappearing but her training told her to focus on firing directly into the throng of enemies, changing point of aim would only serve to leave more enemies standing. Once Karen ceased fire of the miniguns Rachael turned the nose back forward and increased her altitude and speed. Karen could see that the majority of the red diamonds were gone. "They want another run?" She asked.

"Negitive..." The Sergeant responded, "heading one-one-zero, four hundred yards, more Jarheads need some help."

Rachael got the helicopter where it needed to be, a dozen or so red diamonds scattered throughout the area. Karen focused on one small structure where four diamonds were congregated, she fired a single missile at that structure and three of the diamonds disappeared. The remaining enemy ran into another structure where two others were holding up, Karen fired a second missile into that building as well, this time all three diamonds disappearing. Other diamonds had disappeared in the meantime, the handiwork of the ground troops, the Marines seemed to have this situation under control so Rachael broke off.

Throughout the time spent flying around, it became more apparent that this battle had escalated to a level reminiscent of Berlin late in World War Two, aircraft all over, street to street fighting and a generally chaotic atmosphere. Rachael and Karen could hear other Apache's calling in about low munitions and another which had taken damage from ground fire, thankfully none had been shot down. Those low on ammo and damaged were ordered to return to base, leaving Rachael's helo, along with five others remaining. "Rae I'm down to three missiles and less than four hundred rounds, We're going to have to head back soon" Karen said.

"We have enough for one more run" Rachael replied, banking left towards a new piece of heavy armor that had just been tagged. It was an APC that was on the move heading due east.

"Get behind it Rae, we'll hit 'em in the ass!" Karen said.

"I like the way you think!" Rachael said with a smile. She slowed her approach and allowed some distance to grow between her and the target vehicle, she then pointed the helo at it.

"Hope you like it in the butt boys!" Karen said as she fired a missile, which hit low, almost behind the APC and causing it to flip forward onto its roof. "Whoa! Nice hit!"

"Now that's going to be a story you want to tell your kids!" Rachael said just before radioing in. "Red Five is running low on ordnance, recommend return to base."

"Red Five return to base" Kori ordered.

"Yes Ma'am" Rachael replied, climbing to two thousand feet and heading north.

* * *

Rachael and Karen returned safely and were debriefed, they met up in the barracks right after. Rachael had got back first and in the process of changing into a more casual camo pants and tank top when Karen arrived.

"Hey Rae?" Karen said in a tone that cause Rachael to be concerned.

Still in her underwear, Rachael paused and turned to her friend, "What?" She asked, concerned.

"We took Tikrit back!" Karen yelled.

A wave of relief washed over Rachael's conscious. "Hell yes!"


	6. Chapter 6: Intel and Aftermath

Chapter 6: Intel and Aftermath

* * *

Richard was sitting on the side of his cot leaning forward and looking down, deep in thought. He kept playing the event over and over in his head, the small boy raising the gun as he rose to his feet... The details became clearer the more he went over them, the pistol was a Heckler and Koch USP Compact, the boy's hair was one step up from a buzz cut in length, he was wearing only a pair of white cloth pants and he was skinny enough that you could see each of his ribs. He remembered seeing the two red holes appear in his exposed chest, the first hitting just below the sternum and the second just high right of the first, right to the heart. But remembering the boy drop was the most difficult part, he was not fully up when his life was cut short and he fell on his rear and then to his back, then staying as still as a statue.

Someone sat down next Richard, breaking his focus, it was Roy.

"How you holding up?" Roy asked.

"I don't know... It's just... Like... I don't know" Richard struggled to put his thoughts into words.

Roy nodded, "I'm right there with you man... That was harder than I thought..."

The two men sat in silence as they focused on their respective encounters, neither kept track of how much time passed before Victor walked in and sat on the cot next to them.

"How you holding up?" The Master Chief asked.

"I don't know" Richard repeated, Roy simply shook his head.

"That mission was noisier than it was supposed to be, and it's not every day we have to engage hand to hand... "Victor said, looking at Roy, "or with children..." He turned towards Richard. "But it's what we do, both were clean and legal so we move onto the next one."

Richard and Roy remained silent.

"Analysts have been going through everything we found last night, most of it's been little to no help but they did find something on that external harddrive you found..." Richard looked up and made eye contact with Victor. "It looks like Wilson's main base of operations is in Falluja, but he also has a hideout in the outskirts of the city that we haven't pinpointed yet..."

"Falluja?" Richard began, "that's deep in their territory."

Victor nodded. "Yes it is, command is looking at options for what to do with it but for now we've be reassigned..."

"We're not going after Wilson anymore?" Roy asked.

"No, no, that's not the case at all, but intel and command are still planning our next move, while they do that we have another mission" Victor informed. "We need you two in the briefing room in ten minutes."

"Yes sir" the two replied simultaneously.

* * *

Rachael and Karen were watching a movie, but barely paying attention to it. "Did you sleep any last night?" Karen asked.

"Once I actually fell asleep yeah" Rachael replied, "Now actually falling asleep in the first place, that's a different story."

"Oh I hear you" Karen said with a laugh. "That APC flipping like that-" she was cut off by Isiah.

"We need you ladies in the briefing room now" he informed.

"Is there a problem sir?" Rachael asked.

"No, but we just got a new mission dumped on us and it's time sensitive."

The women got up and followed their Sergeant.

* * *

"Looks like everybody's here" Victor said as a few men walked into the room. The lights were dimmed and the white nylon screen was lowered. "About eight months ago ISIS captured this man, Leonid Constantinovitch..." A picture of a middle aged man appeared on the screen. "He is a Russian nuclear physicist, which is probably why he hasn't been executed. Two months ago his trail went cold but new intel has come up..." A picture of a large yacht appeared on screen. "This yacht is sitting forty miles off the coast of Yemen, we believe he is being held there, your mission is to extract him..." A picture of another man appeared on screen. "The yacht belongs to this man, Sebastian Blood, up until a few hours ago the United States believed Blood was nothing more than a drug lord operating in Bolivia with no known connections to ISIS, obviously that has changed. We don't know if Blood is on board, but if he is, he is to be captured alive... You'll be broken up into teams, one team will be inserted via Blackhawk on the stern and will have to make your way forward, the other teams will be on boats providing overwatch and eliminating other enemy vessels, we also have a couple Apache's provided to us by the Army to serve as additional support, questions?"

One SEAL spoke up, "Do we have a layout of the yacht?"

"We do" Victor said, "Those who will be part of the boarding team will be provided a copy and briefed further on the way to the target, anything else?" Nobody spoke. "Alright, load up, I'll be coming to each of you with further instructions."

* * *

Including Rachael and Karen, there were four pilot/gunner pairs in the briefing room. "SEAL Team Eight is being deployed on a rescue mission..." Kori began as Isiah lowered the screen and dimmed the lights. "Our mission is to watch their back" a picture of a large yacht appeared on the screen, "This is the target, it is anchored forty miles off the coast of Yemen and is surrounded by a handful of smaller boats that are creating a perimeter around it, the SEALs will be taking out these targets, you do not have authorization to engage unless Team Eight requests it, questions?"

One man spoke up, "So... What happens if reinforcements come in? We just sit there and watch?"

"Once the perimeter boats are disabled the SEALs will create their own perimeter..." Isiah said, "they can handle themselves, if they need your help they'll ask for it."

"Anything else?" Kori asked, nobody had anything, "Then suit up, we're behind schedule already."

* * *

Richard was going to be part of the team boarding the yacht along with Roy, Victor and nine other SEALs. The rest of Team Eight that was coming along was divided among four small boats they'd be using to attack from the water. As he walked out onto the tarmac he saw three Blackhawk's waiting to take off, he, Roy and Victor, along with one other boarded the first one, the other eight SEALs kept walking towards the other two. Those who were going to be assaulting via boat boarded a nearby C-17 to get ahead of the group and give themselves extra time to setup.

"So let's take a look at the layout of this thing" Roy said, unfolding his copy of the yacht's floorplans. "This is a damn big boat.."

"Five decks..." Richard said, "we're rappelling down onto deck four apparently, but it looks like deck five is just the Bridge."

"My money is on Red Star being on deck two, that's where the bedrooms are" Victor said.

"Cute code name to give a Russian hostage..." The other man quipped as the chopper lifted off the ground.

"Deck one is the engine room, two is the bedrooms, three and four are entertainment and five is the Bridge, okay that's easy to remember..." Richard thought out loud. "Deck four is an open design with that big balcony we're going to be dropping onto, not going to be much cover, might want to pop a flashbang before we get on..."

Victor shook his head, "flashbang isn't an option, the deck is too big and too open for it to be effective."

Roy chimed in, "Deck four only has a bathroom and closet as closed off areas, they're right behind the bar... Deck three is setup almost the same way, just an indoor environment with more furniture."

Richard spoke again, "deck two is going to be a nightmare to clear, seven bedrooms in stupidly tight quarters..."

"Might have to be clearing with sidearms" the other man said, "going to be a bitch to maneuver that rifle around in there."

Roy looked up, "sidearms? More like a knife..."

"Okay here's how we're going to do this, we'll insert first and secure the initial drop zone, Blackhawk Two will come in and they'll move upstairs and clear deck five, by that time we'll be ready to move down and Blackhawk Three will drop in and everybody will be on board." Victor instructed.

* * *

"Whose bright idea was it to send us on this mission? Do they seriously not have anybody closer?" Rachael complained as she disconnected from the KC-10 Extender aircraft after topping off her fuel tanks for the third time this flight.

Karen was shaking her head, "Sixteen hundred mile flight in a helicopter with a range of less than three hundred miles, Army logic at its finest..."

"And that's just one way!" Rachael added.

Karen shook her head again, "oh well, at least we got that flying whale to keep us company the whole trip..." She said in reference to the KC-10 fueling plane.

"All aircraft be advised, you're coming up on SEAL Team Eight, as of now we're all on the same channel, I'm handing you off to Master Chief Victor Stone, who will be taking the lead this mission." Isiah called over the radio, three of the four Apache's acknowledged.

"Red Five copies..." Rachael replied, "Master Chief, radio check."

"Master Chief copies, thanks for coming out guys."

"Master Chief our orders are weapons cold unless you say otherwise, would you like to amend that?" Karen asked.

"Negative, we'll do the dirty work and you can just sit back and enjoy the fireworks, you're really here as an intimidation factor and in case something crazy happens" Victor informed.

"Intimidation factor?" One of the other Army pilots queried.

Victor paused for a moment, "well I can't really get into that, but trust me when I say your being here is a help, even if all you're doing is standing by." He got off the radio, "ISIS soldiers aren't afraid of dying, but I think Sebastian Blood has a different mindset." Richard, Roy and the other SEAL nodded in agreement.

Nearly six hours of flying and two more refuels later the time was at hand, darkness had fallen on the daylight and the target was in sight. Victor got on the radio, "alright kids nap's over, light 'em up!"


	7. Chapter 7: Joint Operations

Chapter 7: Joint Operations

* * *

One of the perimeter boats blew up and sank in seconds, gunfire erupted onto the two others that were immediately visible, both attempted to maneuver away but only one was successful, the other made it only a few yards before the three enemies on board were killed. The third boat made a beeline for the southwest, heading away from the yacht, two boats carrying SEALs pursued as the fourth perimeter boat came into view.

Blackhawk One began its final approach to the stern of the ship, Victor fired at the one man who had run outside to see what all the noise was, the man fell before he even realized what was going on. The helicopter got into position about twenty feet above the landing zone and dropped its rope, "down we go!" Victor said as he took hold of the rope and slid down, followed by Richard, then Roy then the last man. By the time Roy had let go of the rope Victor had already put down another man who was standing in the middle of the room, "hold position!" Victor ordered, "Blackhawk Two move in!"

The first helo had barely gotten out of the way before the second moved into position, four more men rappelled onto the yacht. "Stairs!" Victor ordered, pointing at a stairway off to the side going up, "clear the Bridge!" The four men moved up the stairs as the third helo began to drop the last four SEALs, Victor and his group moved to the opposite side of the deck, he and the other man taking the right side while Richard and Roy took the left. Two gunshots were heard from above, followed by a man calling out that the deck was clear. "Closet is clear, clear the can!" Victor ordered upon seeing the small closet door was open and there was no way for anybody to hide in there. Richard lowered his rifle and pulled out his sidearm, a FNX-45 Tactical, and held it in the high ready position while Roy took hold of the doorknob to the bathroom. Richard nodded and Roy swung the door open, it was empty.

By this time the third group to be inserted had come up behind. "Simmons you're on point, let's go!" Victor ordered.

Back outside, the SEALs were closing in on the fleeing perimeter boat. "Just a little closer and I can open up on these guys!" One man said as he adjusted the M249 light machine gun against his shoulder.

The man driving the boat turned out of the enemy boat's wake in search of smoother water, the other pursuing boat did the same on the other side. Seconds later the men on the M249's began firing and before long thick black smoke began billowing out of the enemy boat. The SEALs continued firing until the boat began to turn left, the pursuers on the left side had to stop short as the enemy vessel crossed their path and continued turning left. After a moment the SEALs realized the enemy boat was ghost riding in a circle, all enemies on board dead. "Make sure" one man said.

One of the men who was shooting an M249 turned and opened a container with a Milkor M32A1 grenade launcher inside. He shouldered the bulky weapon and aimed just ahead of the semi-disabled enemy boat, he fired a single shot that landed right in the middle of it. The vessel stopped turning and rapidly slowed after the explosion, sinking seconds later.

The fourth and final perimeter boat cut around the bow of the yacht, seemingly trying to flank the attacking SEALs. Without being fired upon, the boat stopped as soon as it came into view of the Army helicopters, as the SEALs approached they could see the people aboard had their hands up in surrender. As they boarded to take them prisoner they noticed that the three men were Latino, not Middle Eastern. "Anybody speak English?" One of the SEALs asked, the men remained silent, "English?" The SEAL said, getting only shaking heads in return. "Of course... Make sure they're unarmed then send this boat to the bottom."

Simmons rounded the corner of the stairs leading to deck three with Victor right behind him. They went off to the right at the bottom while Richard and Roy went to the left. Simmons fired at an enemy hiding behind a couch who had left himself partially exposed, Richard got into position just in time to see the man fall as other SEALs moved to watch to top of the stairs leading to deck two. There didn't appear to be anybody else in the large room so he moved forward, checking behind the bar and the small closet behind, which again was open for all to see in. It was clear this room was not used for entertainment, workshop tables could be found all over with various machine parts, containers and drums. As the SEALs moved further into the room they started seeing computers and papers, once the room was cleared, Simmons asked Victor to look at a set of blueprints he had found.

"Oh my god..." Victor said quietly.

"What?" One SEAL asked before hearing gunfire come from the stairs. They all dropped what they were doing and ran to assist. The shooting stopped once Victor got back there, "Go, we got to clear the last two decks, still haven't found the precious cargo!"

As the men moved down the stairs they switched to their sidearms, stepping over a body on the stairway. Deck two's hallways were only about four feet wide so a rifle was out of the question. The main hallway was on the port side of the yacht, just beyond the stairs were two bedrooms followed by a hallway running width-wise. Down that hallway was only a closet but three more, larger bedrooms were beyond it before the hallway terminated at the largest bedroom. The first man stopped and crouched, pointing his pistol down the hallway while the second man grabbed the doorknob to the first bedroom and the third man held his pistol in the high ready position. After a nod, the door was opened, it was empty. The SEAL who opened the door now moved to the front while the man covering the hall took hold of the doorknob to the next bedroom, the third man again held his pistol in the high ready position and the door was opened, empty again.

The SEALs continued moving, clearing the corner and moving to the third bedroom. The man who had cleared the first two bedrooms now crouched and watched the hallway while two men who were further back in the line opened the door to clear. This time the room was not empty, four shots in rapid succession rang out followed quickly by another four rapid shots. "Clear!" The man yelled. The door to the fifth bedroom burst open and a man with an AK-47 ran out, the SEAL watching the hallway put five shots into him before he could raise the rifle.

The fourth and fifth bedrooms were cleared without further incident, a SEAL tried to open the door to the largest bedroom but the door was locked, he knocked his fist against his forehead to indicate he wanted to breach the door with a battering ram. Roy was carrying the breaching tool and made his way to the front, after a nod, he broke the door in and three SEALs ran inside the room. "Red Star located!" One of the men yelled.

"Clear!" Another yelled.

Victor turned around to the men behind him "you six clear deck one, set up remote charges to blow a hole in the bottom of this thing" he said just before heading into the bedroom. He stepped in and saw the man he was sent to rescue. "Mister Constantinovich?"

"Yes" the man replied in English with a heavy Russian accent. He appeared unharmed and clean, it was obvious he had not been physically violated.

"We're here to get you out of here, come with us." Leonid nodded and stepped toward Victor. "Everybody to deck three." The men travelled back up the stairs and Victor lead the scientist to the table with the blueprints he looked at before. "Is this what I think it is?" Victor asked.

"If you think it is a nuclear bomb, yes" the Russian replied, that got everybody's attention.

"What did they have you doing?" Victor asked.

Leonid sighed, "when I was captured I was immediately brought here, the men I was handed off to were not ISIS, they were Spanish, they told me to design a nuclear bomb."

"And you just complied?" Richard asked.

"I didn't at first, but then one of the men put a gun to my head and I changed my mind."

"How long does it take to build one of these?" Victor asked.

"If they have all the materials it would only take a few days if they had a knowledgeable team."

The SEALs went pale. "You've been in captivity for eight months... Are you telling me they could have a massive stockpile of nukes?!" Victor queried.

Leonid shook his head. "I do not think so, in the beginning I did not know what raw materials I was going to have to work with so I had to come up with many different designs, over time I was told what materials I would have and my designs took a more eh... Focused approach... Designing the bombs is a much more time-consuming process than actually building them, this is simply my latest design, it is not even complete."

Victor took a breath. "Okay... How close to finished are these and what would it take to finish them?"

"Around seventy-five percent complete, it would take extensive knowledge of nuclear physics to get them to one-hundred percent."

That was when the men who had cleared the bottom deck reappeared. "Master Chief, charges are set" one of them said.

"Alright everybody topside, time to get out of here" Victor said as he rolled the blueprints up and took them with him. "Whatever chopper you came in on you go out on" he said as he emerged onto deck four "Blackhawks we're ready for exfil, come in one, two, three."

Because of the unique circumstances of the mission, exfiltration was much slower than insertion. It required each Blackhawk to hover in position and lower a harness for each man to connect to and be raised into the helo one at a time. Leonid was taken up first followed by Roy, then Richard, then Victor then the other man who had rode with them. Once all three helos had collected their men they backed off the yacht and held position. "Blow it" Victor ordered over the radio, a second later an explosion could be seen on the starboard side of the yacht. It didn't appear large, but the ship rolled and sank quickly after it. "Red Team could you be so kind as to sink that last enemy boat?"

"With pleasure sir" Rachael replied as she pointed the Apache at the boat. Karen locked onto the small vessel and fired a missile, sending it to the bottom of the ocean. "Red Five, target destroyed."

"Thank you Red Team" Victor said over the radio, "Let's move out!" The convoy of helicopters began the long ride back to base, Victor turned to Leonid, "so mister Constantinovitch... What else has been going on in the last eight months?"


	8. Chapter 8: Lifeline

Chapter 8: Lifeline

* * *

It had been six months since SEAL Team Eight had rescued Leonid Constantinovitch. The scientist was debriefed and returned to his family, who were then put into protective custody courtesy of the Russian government. No intelligence had since been compiled about ISIS having nuclear weapons, nor of ISIS having any other connections to Sebastian Blood, the analysts figured it was a simple contract job of sorts that Blood had provided to the terrorists, they've since lost interest in him.

Team Eight had been following up on leads trying to track down Slade Wilson but the only new piece of information they had found was the rough location of another of his hideouts. Attacking his main base of operations was still out of the question, while some cities had been taken back from ISIS Falluja remained a bridge too far. As ISIS lost ground their forces became more concentrated and their resistance became stiffer, making progress against them was becoming more and more difficult with each step.

Richard and Roy were sitting at a table in the cafeteria. "It's unbelievable that we haven't made any headway on Wilson in all this time" Richard said in frustration.

Roy shrugged, "I don't know what to tell you man, we're doing our part, intel just isn't coming through."

"How is that we can know that he's been made the new supreme leader of ISIS but we don't know where he is?" Richard asked before taking a bite of his cheeseburger.

Roy shrugged again, "he's probably in Falluja, but it's going to take some time before we can really get in there."

Richard shook his head, clearly frustrated. "A simple airstrike would cripple ISIS, just send a damn drone... That's what we have them for isn't it?"

Roy leaned back and took a breath. "Rich... Have you ever thought about taking some leave?"

Richard looked up at him, almost offended. "I've been here less than a year, tour doesn't end for another month."

"I know, but you need to take some time off occasionally, clear your head."

"And do what?" Richard queried, "I don't have anybody to take time off with."

"You don't need to..." Roy replied, "but if you don't take some time for yourself this is going to drive you crazy."

"I'm fine" Richard said, taking another bite of his food.

Roy hesitated, then spoke again, "how many kids have you killed now?"

Richard immediately stopped what he was doing and looked Roy right in the eye. "What did you just say?"

"How many?"

Richard was clearly angry at the question. "Three... You know that, you were there for each one."

"Yeah I was..." Roy said, nodding his head, "and clearly it bothers you, as it should... You want to stay here and add to that number as quickly as possible or do you want to go home for a month and relax a bit?

Richard took a breath, then returned to his food.

* * *

Rachael was reading a book in her cot, reading seemed to be the only thing that kept her mind off combat these days. She had a brush with death far too close for her tastes on her last mission, while flying towards a heavy armor target the glass on the left side of her canopy spider webbed, causing her to flinch violently. When she examined the glass she noticed a fifty caliber bullet lodged in it that would have hit her square in the head had it not been stopped, she had nightmares both nights since. Sergeant Crockett entered the room and sat down on the cot next to her.

"Rachael... Are you okay?" He asked.

Rachael lowered her book. "A bit shaken up sir..."

"That's understandable... I read your report..." Isiah said, "your tour is almost over and I saw you put in for leave."

Rachael nodded. "Need to see mom and dad again... Need to be reminded why I'm here."

Isiah nodded. "I know the psychologists we have here are... Less than great... It's hard to build a relationship with them and put that kind of trust in them... But I hope you're talking to somebody."

Rachael nodded again. "My gunner, Karen put in for leave too, we live in the same city so we're going to hang out."

Isiah smiled, "Good... In the meantime if you need anything just ask." The Sergeant got up and left as Karen entered.

"Everything okay?" The gunner asked after the Sergeant had left.

"Yeah, we just had a little pep talk" Rachael informed.

Karen nodded. "My leave was approved, yours come back yet?"

"I haven't checked yet, probably should..."

"Any idea what you're going to do with the time off?"

Rachael leaned her head back and took a breath. "Get my mind off this craziness."

* * *

With a grunt, Richard did a twentieth rep on the bench with a four hundred pound barbell. "Taking a break?" The man standing behind him asked.

Slightly out of breath, Richard replied "yeah."

The man left the room as Roy entered, "you think about what I said?"

Richard sat up and paused, letting his breath catch up to him. "Say I take leave, what happens if they find Wilson while I'm away?"

"There's plenty of capable men on Team Eight Rich, they can handle it."

Richard sighed, then got up and walked over to a water cooler, pouring himself a cup. "It's not about if Team Eight... Or anybody else for that matter, is capable or not, it's that I want to be the one to put him down."

"Is that how your family wants to be remembered? Full of hate and killing?" Roy asked.

"If it wasn't for my hate... I wouldn't be standing here right now... I wouldn't have a baker's dozen notches in the stock of my rifle... I wouldn't be pulling my weight..." Richard took a sip of water. "Hell I might not even be alive."

Roy crossed his arms, "keep going like you're going and you won't be."

Richard glared at him, he wanted to tell him off but he knew he was right, all he could do is remain silent.

* * *

Rachael and Karen disembarked from their helo. "Well, that was exciting" Karen quipped.

"Hell yeah..." Rachael replied sarcastically, "when that convoy turned right it was game on..."

Their little exchange was interrupted by Kori. "How did the mission go ladies?"

"Dull ma'am, completely uneventful" Rachael said.

"Those are the best kind" Kori replied, "Corporal Roth can I see you in my office please?"

Rachael's face showed concern. "Yes ma'am... Is there a problem?" She asked.

"No, just want to discuss some things with you."

Karen chimed in, "I'll catch up to you" she said before heading into the barracks, Rachael followed Kori into the offices.

The Lieutenant's office was nicer than one would expect for a field location, hardwood floors, a large black desk and even paintings. Rachael was left to wonder what Kori's office on her home base looked like. "Please sit" Kori said, extending her hand to the two chairs in front of the desk while sitting in the chair behind it.

Rachael sat down, her flight suit made her feel very out of place. "I feel like I'm disrespecting you wearing this..."

"You're not..." Kori said, shaking her head, "you're fine, I wanted to talk to you about your prospects, where you planned to take your skills, where you see yourself in five years..."

"Why do you ask?" Rachael asked.

"It's my job, I'm responsible for you and your well being, I can't be effective at keeping you on the right path if I don't build a relationship with you" Kori informed.

Rachael chuckled, "wow... Nobody's ever really been interested in me like that before."

"Dating life not so great?" Kori queried with a smile.

Rachael couldn't help but laugh. "Ma'am I'm twenty two years old and been serving in the Army for the last three years, I haven't been on a date since I signed the papers."

"Well your standards should be high now, you're an Army pilot with combat experience, your pool of candidates should be narrow."

Rachael smiled, "if the right one comes along then the right one comes along... I'm not doing this improve my dating life."

"Why are you doing it?"

"As an able-bodied and sound-minded American citizen I have an obligation to protect my country to the best of my ability."

Kori nodded, then spoke, "you could have done that without becoming a pilot, what drove you in that direction?"

"Would you believe me if I told you a helicopter tour of the Grand Canyon?" Rachael asked, almost embarrassed.

"I would."

"Oh... Okay then, good" the two women laughed.

"So that's your history..." Kori began, "where does your story go from here?"

"Well I go on leave in three days-"

"Further ahead than that, what do you see yourself doing five years from now?"

"Hopefully... Still serving my country" Rachael replied.

"You plan to make this a career?" Kori asked.

"I haven't decided yet... My dad was a Marine for twenty-two years, only retired a few months before I enlisted, now he and a couple of his friends own a gun shop."

Kori nodded again, "I'm of course not trying to discourage you from making a career out of the Army... But consider your options, life has a funny way of presenting opportunities too good to pass up."

"I'm always on the lookout for them Ma'am."

* * *

The airplane Richard was on touched down smoothly onto the runway, he heard the reverse thrusters open and felt the plane slow down rapidly. After disembarking from the plane, retrieving his checked luggage and getting a taxi he found himself bewildered as he stood on the sidewalk in front of his parents house, which was legally his now and owned outright. "Whose been mowing the lawn?" Richard thought out loud, he hadn't been here in nearly a year and hadn't hired anybody to keep the place up, yet the lawn was mowed, leaves were minimal and the bushes were trimmed.

"Rich!" A female voice called out. Richard turned to his left where it came from and saw his best childhood friend, Toni Monetti.

"Toni?" He said, almost in disbelief.

"Yeah!" She said with excitement, "I would ask where you've been it's pretty clear from your uniform... Navy... Really?" Richard turned so his body was facing the young woman, showing the Trident on his right chest. Toni's eyes went wide. "The SEALs? You have got to be kidding!"

"Petty Officer First Class" Richard announced proudly.

"E-6 if I remember correctly..." Toni said, her eyes narrow, "I just got promoted to E-5."

Richard quirked an eyebrow, "When did you join up?"

Toni smiled, "two years ago, and I just re-enlisted."

"What branch?"

"Marines" Toni said, holding her jaw high, "Sergeant now... Even seen combat, I was part of the invasion of Tikrit, were you there?"

Richard shook his head, "no I was doing something else when that was going on... I heard about that invasion though, was it as chaotic as they say?"

"It's war Rich, chaos is a typical day at the office."

Richard smiled, "congratulations Sergeant... You just get home?"

Toni frowned and shook her head, "no unfortunately, I ship out in the morning."

"Ah that's a shame" Richard said, disappointed.

"It is... But you can make the most of our time by taking me out to dinner."

"Dinner?" Richard queried.

"You've been gone three years Rich, we have a lot of catching up to do."


	9. Chapter 9: Cloak and Dagger

Chapter 9: Cloak and Dagger

* * *

With as many times as Richard had been through Ben Gurion Airport over the past year he still couldn't help but admire the beauty of the place. The interior of Terminal 3 looked more like a mall in a rich suburb than a Middle Eastern Airport, but then again Richard had found himself to be woefully ignorant of how the Middle East is, many stereotypes simply are not true.

After nearly an hour of driving, Richard and two other SEALs returning from leave arrived at their destination, with Roy there to greet them. "I have to thank you" Richard said to Roy as he got out of the car.

"For what?" Roy asked.

"For getting me to take a mental health day... It helped" Richard informed.

Roy smiled, "I thought it might... I hope you're ready to jump right back in though, we have a mission already."

"Wilson?" Richard said, hopeful.

Roy shrugged, "Don't know, but briefing starts in a few minutes, you have time to drop your stuff off and get in there."

* * *

The Roth family was involved in a three-way hug between Rachael, her mother and father. "It was great to see you guys again, I'll be home again soon" Rachael said as she moved to board her flight.

"Don't make it too soon" Travis said.

Rachael turned and smiled, gave a last wave and walked down the jetbridge onto her plane.

The flight was long, but once it was over and Rachael had disembarked, she found Karen. "I hate flying" she quipped.

"I can tell, that's why you're a pilot and all" Karen teased.

"Yup... I'm a walking contradiction" Rachael said with a smile.

"So what do you think is next?"

"Proficiency test" Rachael said with a smirk.

Karen glared at her, "I meant after that smartass."

"More raining down hell from above."

* * *

"For those you just coming back from home I'd like to welcome you back to paradise, sun, sand and gunpowder..." Victor said as he prepared the slideshow. "Our target is this man..." A picture of a very old man appeared on screen. "We only know him by his ISIS handle, General Immortus... We don't know his real name, his age or even his country of origin, but none of that really matters... The point is this man is responsible for most of the trouble we've been having in the war effort, he is an expert tactician and was believed to have been KIA'd more than once, which is probably where he gets his nickname..."

"Great..." Richard mumbled, "first kids now senior citizens..."

"Our hope is that once we eliminate Immortus their fighting will be less organized and easier to break through, we've been losing more people lately and a lot of that has to do with his strategies. As much as I hate to admit it he is a military genius, we can't have that on the opposing side, questions?"

"Where is he?" One SEAL asked.

"Here" Victor replied as a picture of a high-rise building appeared on screen, it was obvious this building was in the middle of a large, first-world city.

The SEALs were confused, "okay, that's obviously not Ramadi or any other city we've been fighting in..." One of them said.

"It's in London" the Master Chief informed.

Everybody gave pause, a mixture of shock and disbelief overtook them. Richard was the first to speak, "London as in... England?"

"That's correct" Victor said with a nod.

The room was left speechless for a moment, one SEAL found his voice, "we're supposed to go on a hit mission in London England?"

"That's correct" Victor repeated, "This mission is going to be a significant departure from our normal operation, you'll be flying into Heathrow Airport under the guise of businessmen and staying in a hotel adjacent to the target structure, you'll perform recon to get an exact fix on Immortus and breach under the cover of darkness... We'll have some computer guys backing you up to take care of any lights and cameras."

"What are we, James Bond now?" Roy asked.

"If you have a better idea let's hear it..." Victor said, "that's a very large structure in the middle of a huge city with a ton of civilians all over the place."

"Why aren't the Brits taking care of this?" Richard asked.

"They're not cooperating, their PM isn't interested in helping us fight ISIS." Victor said, causing Richard to facepalm.

"This is going to be fun..." One SEAL quipped sarcastically.

...

Richard felt completely out of place as he waited in line to get his passport stamped, the business suit he was wearing was uncomfortable, feeling too tight on the shoulders but the sleeves were too long. Once outside, he and Roy, also dressed in a business suit, hailed a cab.

Once they arrived at their destination they checked in as if they were on a business trip and were given a room on the top floor. Over time other SEALs arrived and were given rooms all in the same general vicinity, each with a perfect vantage point to the target structure. Over the next few hours the men conversed and strategized about the mission, coordinating with their tech-savy allies. There was a knock at the door.

"Mr. Jacob Riley?" The bellhop asked.

"That would be me" Richard replied.

"Your other two bags arrived, so sorry for the inconvenience" the man said as he handed the suitcases off.

"Oh it's no problem, not your fault, you have a good one" Richard said with a smile.

He put the two suitcases on the bed and opened one, inside was his sidearm, knife and his disassembled rifle, complete with sound suppressors for the firearms as well as a full complement of ammo. He assembled the rifle and loaded a magazine into it, leaving the chamber empty and slid it between the mattress and box spring, he did the same with his sidearm but concealed his knife in his pants. In the other suitcase was his combat vest with armor plates as well as his BDU's, only these ones were black instead of the normal camo pattern. Also in the suitcase was a parachute as the planned exfiltration was a BASE jump off the building.

"We spotted flashlight yet?" Richard asked, referring to the target by his code name.

"Negitive, but assuming every middle eastern guy in that structure on the top five floors is a hostile, this is going to be hairier than we thought."

"A lot of them?"

"I've seen at least twenty different guys... And that's just who've come to the window" Roy informed.

"Wonderful" Richard said as his and Roy's phones beeped, they checked the message and found it to be a layout of the target structure. "Well this will help..." There was another knock at the door.

"Mark, Ryuku, come on in" Richard said to his two teammates.

"You just got the layout too?" Mark asked.

"Yep... Might want to get everybody together and plan this out, I'm sure I'm not the only one whose seen how many potential hostiles we're going to be up against" Roy said.

"I counted thirty two" Ryuku informed.

Richard looked at Ryuku, then glared at Roy, "Twenty huh?"

"I did say 'at least'" Roy said, causing Richard to sigh, there was another knock at the door.

Eventually, all sixteen men had converged into the one room and began discussing strategy. None had spotted the target yet so Ryuku sat by the window, looking for him.

"How are we going to clear all that before local cops show up?" One man asked.

"We're not... There is no way we're going to be able to clear all those rooms" Richard said.

"We don't even know what floor he's on" another man said.

"He'd want to be on the upper floors, away from any cameras" Roy said.

"Let's assume the top five floors, just bear with me for a minute" Richard began, "we'd want to start on the floor fifth from the top and assault up, that way he can't run to the street."

"Okay that makes sense but it still doesn't solve our problem of having a million rooms to clear" one SEAL said.

"No it doesn't but it's a start, we'll have to break up into teams-" Richard was interrupted.

"Target spotted" Ryuku announced.

Richard immediately got up and rushed over to his team sniper. "Where?" He asked.

"Fourth floor from the top, left side, third window in."

Richard looked out the window with his own pair of binoculars. "Confirmed... That's him."

"Time to call the Master Chief" Roy said as he dialed Victor and set the phone to speaker.

"Report" said Victor's voice over the phone.

"We have a confirmed sighting of flashlight, we're developing a strategy to assault the building" Richard said.

"Well hang on a second, why don't we just have the snipers setup on the roof and wait for him to come into view?" One man asked.

Richard shook his head. "Every hour that passes we lose more people, Immortus might not come to the window again anytime soon."

"Not to mention there are too many windows to cover at too close range" Mark added.

Ryuku nodded in agreement. "If the structure were five hundred yards or more away that might be feasible, because we'd have a wide enough view, but the structure is just across the street, we're talking about ranges from less than one hundred yards to barely two hundred yards."

"We're facing the target structure at an angle, is that going to be a problem for you two?" Richard asked.

The snipers shook their heads. "First shot should spider web the glass and any shots after that won't be affected much" Mark said.

"You can get follow-up shots off fast enough?" One man asked.

"We left the MRAD's at home and brought the AR-10s for a reason" Ryuku quipped.

"Good call Grayson, I told you you guys would be able to pull everything together, don't forget to call your drivers before you breach" Victor said, you could hear the smile on his face.

"Will do sir" Richard informed just before Victor hung up. "We break up into three teams of four each, two breach the fifth floor from the top and the other breaches the next floor up, Roy, you, me, Simmons and O'Malley will be the red team, Smith, Burke, Jones and Gonzalez you're the blue team, the rest of you are the green team, Ryuku, you're Sniper One, Mark you're Sniper Two-" he was interrupted.

"Who made you Chief?" One of the men on the green team asked, seemingly offended.

"If you haven't noticed there are no Chief's here, someone has to come up with a plan, if you have a better one let's hear it" Richard spat. The man sat back silently. "Okay then... This is going to be a run and gun op, we don't have the time or ammo to clear every single room so kick in the doors and put down anything immediately visible then move on, watch your six, we're inevitably going to miss a few and we don't need them sneaking up behind us. We'll have the tech guys cut the power to the building so night vision on at all times, that'll also knock out the elevators so it'll give us more time to find Immortus and take him out before the cops show up. Questions?"

"What happens if we get surrounded?" A man asked.

"Flashbangs are your friend, smoke grenades if you need to get away fast."

Roy stood up and stepped toward Richard, "this is bold Rich, maybe a little too bold."

"There's no other way to do it" Richard said. "Oh-one-five-five we have the tech guys cut the camera feeds in the hallways to this building, ten second window to get ourselves to the roof where we setup, oh-two hundred we breach... Be ready... See you gentlemen then."


	10. Chapter 10: Going in Hot

Chapter 10: Going in Hot

* * *

"Three... Two... One... Go!" A female voice said over the phone. The SEALs, now suited up for battle, ran outside the hotel room and made a beeline for the utility stairs to the roof. "Eight seconds" the voice said as the first man reached the door and opened it, making room for the rest of the men to go through. "Six seconds" The voice called out as the utility door was closed and the soldiers rushed up the stairs. "Four seconds" the SEAL in front opened the door to the roof and held it open for his teammates. "Two seconds" the door was closed and the team was out of sight of any cameras on the roof. "Time."

"Thanks Mel, on my Zulu cut power to the target structure" Richard said over the radio. "Alright... Snipers find a cozy spot and setup, let me know when you're ready... Green team you'll be breaching the upper floor, blue team pick a window on the left, red team we're taking the right."

Mark setup on the right hand side near the edge of the building with his spotter. He adjusted his bipod and got a comfortable cheek weld. Ryuku setup on the left side on top of an industrial air conditioner, his spotter opting to sit next to Ryuku's perch.

"Sniper two ready."

"Sniper one ready."

"Roger snipers ready..." Richard began, his heart was beating quickly from the stress, on top of the highly sensitive nature of the mission it was his plan being employed, a lot was riding on it. "... Everybody know where they're going?" Some of the men nodded but all stayed silent. "If anybody isn't sure about something now is your last chance to speak up" again nobody said anything, Richard picked the phone back up. "Okay... One minute to breach, launch the hooks!"

Roy and two other SEALs crouched at the edge of the building with a trio of odd looking rifles with grappling hooks sitting in the muzzles and a strange added compartment under the barrel which housed the rope. Almost in unison, the three fired. "Zulu Zulu Zulu!" Richard called out, the few lights that were on in the building went out just before the hooks crashed through the windows they were aimed at. "Find an anchor!" He said after seeing his three teammates confirm the hooks had latched onto something solid. Roy and the man from the green team anchored their rope to a set of thick steel pipes about thirty feet from the edge of the building while the man from the blue team anchored his to another set of pipes twenty feet to the left. "In we go!" Richard said as he attached his zip line pulley to the rope. This pulley employed a pair of handles instead of a hook for a harness, so the only thing preventing him, or any of the other SEALs who were using the same device from falling, was his grip. The pulley moved slower than he expected, but before too long Richard crashed into the partially broken window and let go of the device, landing on the floor and rolling into a crouching position, he immediately put his feet under him and scanned every direction, the room was empty.

Roy was the second one to come over making an entrance very similar to Richard's and nearly bowling him down in the process. "That was graceful" Roy quipped. The two men made their way to the door to the main hallway as the third SEAL entered the room.

"Hear anything on the outside?" Richard asked.

Roy put his ear against the door and listened, the final man just entering the room, cutting the line behind him. "Nothing."

"Open it" Richard whispered. The door was opened and the men entered the hallway, it was empty.

The sight of the hallway with ones own eyes was more intimidating than the floor plans suggested, doors on either side every twenty feet or so, luckily most were open. The closest door was closed so the men stacked up to it, Richard and Roy on the left side, the other two men on the right. The door was opened and Richard raised his rifle , pointing it into the room, there was nothing. As the minutes passed and rooms were observed, not cleared, without any enemy contact the SEALs began to wonder what was going on, the floor the blue and red teams were on appeared empty. As the red team approached the stairs to the next floor, they started hearing muffled gunfire, very much like standing outside an indoor shooting range. "Green team has heavy contact, we need help!" A voice yelled over the radio as louder, unsuppressed shots began to ring out.

"Go!" Richard yelled as the men ran up the stairs. Roy was on point, as he rounded the corner at the top of the stairs he spotted four hostiles at a hallway intersection thirty feet away. He began firing at them immediately along with the SEAL right behind him, by the time Richard and the fourth man had rounded the corner the four enemies were down. Shots were still being exchanged down the hallway. Green team coming up behind you, friendlies friendlies!" Richard yelled into the radio as he and the other three rushed in to aid their colleagues. All eight SEALs were now firing at hostiles down the hall, after a few seconds the shooting stopped on both sides.

"What the hell is going on?!" One man on the green team demanded, "we've already had to engage a dozen enemies, what the hell was downstairs?"

"It was empty" Roy informed.

The man who spoke looked at Roy with both shock and severe irritation, then turned to Richard. "Great plan Grayson, send two thirds of your manpower to clear an empty floor, brilliant!"

"Hey!" O'Malley said, "we don't have time to dick around, we have three more floors to clear after this one!"

"Any problems you have with my planning we can talk about later, we need to go now, backtrack down the hall and link up with the blue team, we'll clear the last hallway" Richard said, turning back the way he came. "Blue team report."

"No contact yet" the blue team responded.

"Green team is headed your way, move to the next floor with them and split up."

"Copy."

The red team returned to the first hallway where they had eliminated the first four hostiles, only two doors were closed along the entire hallway. They moved down slowly, watching each door for potential threats until they reached the first closed door. They stacked up and opened the door, empty, the second door was the same thing. As they moved to the stairs, their tech girl came over the radio, "be advised guys the police have been called."

"Clock's ticking gentlemen" Richard said as he and his team made their way up the stairs. They emerged into the next hallway to find two men walking towards them and a third further down exiting a room. The SEALs immediately fired upon the unarmed men. More muffled gunshots could be heard from the southwest corridor as the green and blue teams engaged their own targets. The red team took only a few steps before enemy soldiers began pouring out from the side rooms, few of them got any shots off however as the SEALs night vision gave them a distinct advantage. A total of fourteen bodies lined the hallway once the shooting stopped.

"Blue and green heading east" a voice said over the radio.

"Copy check, red team heading west" Richard replied as he walked. After opening a few closed doors Richard spotted someone at the far west end of the hallway, he identified the person as General Immortus. "Flashlight spotted!" He yelled as he pointed his rifle at the distant target. Immortus began to run, surprisingly fast for someone of his apparent age as Richard fired several shots at him. "Sniper one northwest stairwell!"

"Copy!" Ryuku responded. He fired several rounds into the appropriate windows, unsure if he was hitting anything.

Richard continued to fire at the target as he disappeared onto the next floor, going so far as to shoot through the ceiling, he only stopped when his magazine ran dry. "All teams flashlight is on the next floor up last seen on the northwest stairwell, blue team take the southwest stairs, green team take the southeast!"

"Copy" two men said in near unison over the radio.

The red team ran up the northwest stairwell with Richard on point, before rounding the corner and entering the corridor Roy spoke, "hey Rich I think you got him." That got Richard's attention, he turned to look at Roy. "High velocity blood spatter" Roy said pointing to a small pattern of blood on the wall, "and there's a blood trail."

Richard did a quick peek around the corner, he saw that the blood trail continued down it, and also saw the dozen or so enemies waiting for them. "Pop flashbangs, we got company waiting for us."

O'Malley Simmons each pulled the pins on a flashbang grenade. Simmons rolled his only a few yards down the hall, as soon as it went off O'Malley threw his down to the midsection of the hall, as soon as the second grenade went off the red team rounded the corner and began shooting. It could barely be called a fight as none of the ISIS troops got a single shot off.

"Police are on scene guys, speed it up!" The tech girl announced.

"Armed response or air support?" Richard asked.

"Negative, they don't seem to know what's going on but that probably isn't going to last, they're on the north side of the building."

More muffled gunshots could be heard in the distance as the other SEALs engaged hostiles, Richard and his three partners followed the trail of blood to a closed door in the center of the hallway on the left. The men stacked up and Richard extended a fist then opened it quickly, Roy pulled out a brick of titanium-surrounded C4 and peeled off the plastic, then placed it on the door, two seconds later the door was vaporized. With Richard leading the way the men entered the room which appeared to be setup as a waiting room, but through an open doorway on the opposite side was another room. They continued into the room and found Immortus off to the left sitting in a chair behind a large desk, he was leaning back and holding his side, his breathing heavily labored. With the four men pointing their rifles at their target, Immortus spoke in German-accented English, "Mohammad will have his revenge on you..."

Richard pulled his trigger, sending a bullet right into Immortus' third eye, the back of the man's head exploded in a disgusting shower of red and he slumped forward onto the desk, motionless.

"Flashlight eliminated, time to get out of here!" Richard yelled over the radio. The red team backtracked into the hallway and ran towards the floor to ceiling window at the southwest end. "Cut the power to the cameras at ground level, all teams exfil through the south windows!"

"Green team taking the plunge!" A man said.

"Blue team jumping!" Another said.

"Snipers jumping!" Mark announced.

The red team shot at the glass at the end of the hallway, Roy was in front and jumped through it, shattering it into millions of pieces, he was followed closely by Richard and the other two SEALs.

"Cameras disabled, don't dilly dally!" The girl said.

Less than thirty seconds passed between the time Richard jumped off the building and when he landed safely on the ground with the rest of his team. As the men rolled their parachutes up a white Ford Transit van drove up next to them with its rear doors open, the SEALs scrambled in, closing the doors once everybody was inside. "Red team clear" Richard announced.

"Blue team and snipers clear" Ryuku said.

There was a pause, longer than comfortable for Richard, before a voice came over the radio, "green team clear."

With a sigh of relief, Richard sat down and allowed himself to relax, "let's not do anything like that again." The men nodded in agreement, Richard turned to the driver, "where to now?"

"Outskirts of the city, there's a few cars waiting for you in a blind spot to get you boys to Luton Airport where there's a charter plane waiting to take you back to Tel Aviv... There's business suits in that container there for you."

"Blind spot?" Roy asked.

"You can't scratch your ass in the UK without the government watching it on a camera, unless you're in one of the blind spots."

Richard took a breath, "who do you work for guy?" He asked the driver.

"Special Agent Walter West, Central Intelligence Agency."


	11. Chapter 11: The Beginning of the End

Chapter 11: The Beginning of the End

* * *

Two months have passed since the SEALs had eliminated General Immortus, and the results were showing. ISIS' fighting had become more erratic and less organized and the city of Ramadi had been taken back just recently. The ultimate prize was now in sight - Falluja.

Richard was lifting some free weights when Victor approached him, "Hey Rich, you got a couple minutes?"

"Yes sir... Is there a problem?" Richard responded.

"Why does everybody always think there's something wrong?" Victor asked jokingly, "nah, you're going to like this, come on." Richard followed Victor into his office. It was a simple setup, a desk, a couple chairs, a bookshelf and several filing cabinets, the only decoration to speak of being a framed picture on the wall drawn in crayon, obviously done by a young child. "You've been doing a lot of stepping up lately, and it hasn't gone unnoticed..."

"Just doing what I can sir."

"Everybody does what they can, but you take it to a different level... You're a leader whether you realize it or not."

Richard blinked, "if I have an idea I throw it out there."

"You have a lot of ideas" Victor said, "and you've yet to have a bad idea."

Richard adjusted his seat, "I wish I could agree with that sir... But my idea last week nearly got Simmons killed."

"We're soldiers Rich, it happens... I've lost a lot of good men in my time..." Victor began, "it didn't mean my plan of attack was bad or the execution was bad, it's just something that happens... What happened to Simmons is why we wear ballistic plates, which did their job and stopped the bullet."

Richard sighed.

"Don't dwell on it, it's just something that happens, the sooner you accept that the better..." Victor opened one of the desk drawers and pulled out a small black box. "The reason I called you in here was because I wanted you to know that your leadership skills have been noticed, and now they're going to be recognized..." He opened the box, revealing an E-7 patch. "I'm promoting you to Chief."

Richard leaned forward to get a better look at the patches, his eyes went wide, "Are you serious?"

"Very, we need good men who step up in our leadership positions" Victor said.

"Wow..." Richard began, "What changes for me now?"

"Well for one nobody gets to say you're not a Chief anymore..." Victor said. "You give orders in the field, can be involved in planning, you can put entire ops together if you want, though I would have to sign off on them."

"And how often do you have to deny an op planned by one of your Chiefs?"

Victor smiled, "haven't had to yet, I don't promote any of my guys to Chief unless I trust them completely."

"So you don't trust all your guys completely?" Richard joked.

Victor shifted his glance, "not everybody can be a Chief Rich, now just smile and nod."

Richard smiled, "Thank you sir."

* * *

"We're hit!" Rachael yelled as multiple alarms sounded in the cockpit and red lights flashed. The helo was going down as she desperately tried to regain some flight control authority with no success. She watched helplessly as the ground rapidly approached...

She woke up in a cold sweat and short of breath, looking around the dark room she saw her colleagues all asleep in their cots and breathed a sigh of relief. She got up and went to the bathroom, where she splashed some cold water on her face. She leaned on the sink staring straight down with her eyes closed and taking deep breaths, after a few moments she wiped her face with a cloth.

"Rae?" A voice said.

Rachael jumped so high she nearly hit her head on the ceiling, she turned to find Karen standing in the doorway. "Jesus Christ you scared the shit out of me!"

Karen quirked an eyebrow. "Yeah I can see that, what's going on?"

"Nothing... Just a nightmare."

"You've been having a lot of nightmares lately Rae, are you sure you're okay?" Karen asked, concerned.

"I'm fine" Rachael replied quickly.

Karen wasn't satisfied, and prodded again, "Rachael, you're not fine... You were having nightmares before we went on leave, you had them on leave, now you're back and you're still having them, you have a problem." Rachael looked offended and pushed her way out of the bathroom without a word. "Hey, get back here!" Karen demanded. "This isn't just about you!" Rachael stopped. "I'm up there with you and I need to know your head is where it needs to be, when I'm sitting behind you in that tin can you need to remember I'm back there and completely at your mercy, not to mention our people on the ground!"

Rachael took a few deep breaths then turned to face her friend and partner. "You're right..." She said, nodding, "I'll talk to the shrink today."

* * *

"A Chief now huh?" Roy queried.

"Yeah, feels pretty damn awesome" Richard replied with a big smile.

"So what are you going to do with your new authority?"

"Well I thought with my first act as Chief I'd send you off on a solo mission into Falluja."

Roy laughed "Hell yeah, armed with just a knife probably too, and when I walked out without a scratch I'd have you to thank for being called a legend."

The men laughed and ate their dinner, eventually the conversation shifted to more conventional twenty-something guy topics.

"So when you going to find yourself a girl Rich?" Roy asked.

Richard swallowed his food. "Don't know... Last one ended on some pretty bad terms."

"Yeah you told me that story, but she wasn't worth it if she wasn't going to stick by you through some hard times."

Richard diverted his eyes from his food to Roy's face, "that's something I expect to hear from someone twice your age."

"Well I am wise beyond my years" Roy said just before taking a sip of his drink.

Richard laughed and shook his head, "I'm focusing on more important things right now Roy."

"I noticed, but sooner or later this war is going to be over, you plan on staying with the SEALs or hanging up your rifle once ISIS is done for?"

"The rifle is never going to be hung up whether I'm wearing the uniform or not... It's in my blood now, I don't think that type of thing ever leaves you... And the United States has no shortage of enemies."

Roy nodded, "ain't that the truth..."

Victor walked into the room, "Team Eight, we got a mission."

The two men stood up immediately and walked to the briefing room among the rest of their colleagues.

"First off I would like to congratulate Richard Grayson on his recent promotion to Chief..." Victor began as the room darkened. "We're going after the big prize this time gentlemen, intel reports that Slade Wilson is holed up in his hideout in Al Habbaniyah, just west of Falluja..." An industrial type building appeared on screen. "Don't be fooled by the style of this building, there are plenty of residential houses thickly settled around it, this location is behind enemy lines, barely, so keep your heads on a swivel. You'll be inserting via a HALO jump just north of the target structure, unfortunately we do not have a layout of this building so we're going to have to play it by ear once we're in..." The picture on screen changed to a picture of an airport. "The primary extraction point is Al Taqaddum Airbase, three miles south, it's been bombed and all surveillance of it shows no activity, once we arrive we call it in and a plane will land to pick us up, ideally the plane will be on the ground less than five minutes... One last thing, the Army will be providing us with a single apache for air support should we need it, they'll be hanging back unless we call for them... Questions?"

"You said _primary_ extraction is via the airport... Do we have a secondary in mind?" One man asked.

"Yes but it's not pretty, secondary extraction will be due west of the target structure, heading towards the fighting, Army has a QRF ready to punch through enemy lines and pick us up."

"Why don't they just punch the hole through anyway?" Roy asked.

"Maybe I chose my words wrong... Quick response force is north of the target structure where enemy activity is much lighter, if we need to go that route it's going to take them a lot of time to get to us... Taking into consideration that the primary extraction is three miles south as well as every other variable worth considering the secondary rally point was chosen because whoever gets there first will be waiting the shortest amount of time possible... If it were further north or further south then somebody is going to be waiting" Victor explained.

"Makes sense" Richard mumbled.

"Anything else?" Victor asked, getting silence in return, "Alright then, suit up."

* * *

Rachael walked out of the psychologists office to find Karen standing outside. "Were you waiting for me?" She asked.

Karen briefly paused before answering, "yeah... I'm your partner and your friend Rae, I worry about you."

Rachael blinked and sighed, then embraced Karen in a hug. "I don't know what I'd do without you... I probably would have gone crazy had you not talked me into going in there."

Karen returned the hug, "Hey that's what I'm here for... We support each other."

Rachael pulled back and took a breath, "Then you better never leave my side."

Karen smiled, "I'm not going anywhere Rae."

"Ah there you two are" Sergeant Crockett said as he walked up to the two women, "everything okay?"

"Yeah" the two women said in unison before looking at each other in an almost comical fashion.

Isiah quirked an eyebrow. "Well... Okay then..." He began, opting not to ask. "We have a mission, need you two in the briefing room."

Rachael and Karen were confused as to why it was only them, Isiah and Kori in the room as the presentation began. They wanted to ask what was going on but following their training saved their questions for the end.

"I'm sure you're both wondering why it's just you here... The answer is this is a single- bird mission" Kori began.

"You may recall an op a year or so ago where you covered SEAL Team Eight when they raided a yacht..." Isiah began. "Well, Team Eight is doing another raid and you're going to be their support... "They're raiding this structure but inserting about a quarter of a mile north of it, you're going to be on standby at high altitude until they call you for help."

"If they call you for help" Kori added, "as is typical with the SEALs we don't know exactly who or what they're going after, we just know they might need help and if that's the case we're going to provide it."

"Master Chief Victor Stone will be your contact with them, you may remember him from the yacht mission last year, questions?"

"When do we leave?" Rachael asked.

Isiah smiled, "right now."


	12. Chapter 12: Ambush

Chapter 12: Ambush

* * *

Richard was checking the connections on his harness for the fifth time in the last hour, he despised High Altitude Low Opening jumps and was thankful they were rare.

"Nervous?" Roy asked.

Richard looked at him, "no way, I've been waiting to get Wilson way too long to be nervous... Just don't like jumping out of perfectly good airplanes."

"Well, the Airborn Rangers jump from planes all the time."

"Yeah, and they ain't got no goddamn brains" Richard replied smugly.

"Put on a fresh pair of panties gentlemen, thirty seconds!" Victor yelled. The men got up and lined up as the red light came on and the back of the plane opened. The section they were in was not pressurized and its climate control system only did so much, but when that rear cargo door opened the men felt the full force of the thin, frigid air at twenty thousand feet, it was a motivator of sorts to jump.

The light turned green and a loud alarm sounded, "GO GO GO!" Victor yelled as the first man jumped, followed closely by the rest one at a time, Richard was one of the last to take the plunge. The view was spectacular, even if it was terrifying, about halfway down Richard could see explosions a few miles west where the front lines were, looking down again he could see some of the SEALs had opened their parachutes and were about to land. Eventually, Richard reached the altitude where he had to open his own parachute, it deployed as expected and properly, bringing him to a safe landing, where he immediately discarded it, the harness and his oxygen canister and mask.

The men quickly moved to cover, observing their surroundings and watching for any hostile activity, the area appeared to be abandoned. "Form up" Victor said, "we got a short walk south, weapons cold, heads on a swivel."

* * *

Rachael and Karen were one mile out from their hold point cruising at fifteen thousand feet. "Ten seconds to rally point" Rachael said.

"Copy," Isiah replied over the radio, "handing you over to the SEALs."

"Master Chief, Red Five reporting" Rachael announced.

"Copy Red Five, glad you could make it, we just landed and are making our way to the target structure" Victor responded.

"We're at our rally point, holding position, awaiting your orders."

"Copy that... We'll call you if we need you" Victory said.

* * *

As the men moved towards to target building Richard caught movement out of the corner of his eye, he immediately turned and pointed his rifle at the offending object, which was a window closing. Richard kept his weapon trained on the window as he continued forward until it was out of sight.

The target building came into view. "Spread out, recon" Victor ordered.

The men scattered, taking to different spots to observe the structure, looking for any enemy soldiers, nobody spotted any. "I got no contact at all... The Supreme Leader of ISIS is in there and they don't even bother putting a guy by the door?" Roy said.

"Maybe they're just trying to be subtle" one man said.

"Or they left already" Richard suggested.

"Whatever the case we still have to clear that structure, we're going in through that door on the left" Victor said, "form up."

The men stacked up against the wall on either side of the door, Richard on the left side on point, Roy on the right. The door was a flimsy interior door like you'd find in a bedroom, causing the men to look at each other, confused. Richard took hold of the doorknob and turned, to his surprise, the door was unlocked. "What the...?" He muttered. Quickly putting his head back in the game, Richard pushed the door open and entered the building, moving off to the right side. The interior was massive, a gigantic warehouse with a large open space where the men were entering. There was an upper, open floor in a "L" shape on the opposite walls from the SEALs, the ground floor had several dozen crates scattered around as well as several forklifts of varying sizes. There was also a single MRAP parked with its nose pointing at the large garage door on the wall to the left of the door the SEALs came through.

The men began searching the area, looking around the crates and forklifts for any sign of activity, and finding none. Minutes passed without any of the SEALs finding any sign of life. "There's nothing here" one of the men said.

"We don't know that, we still have a whole other floor to search" Victor replied, "Rich, take a few guys upstairs and clear it out."

"Yes sir" Richard said, motioning to a handful of men, "let's go."

Richard's makeshift team made it about ten steps before every light in the building came on, including floodlights which made seeing upstairs from the ground floor nearly impossible. "Oh shit" one SEAL muttered, he barely got the words out of his mouth before a hurricane of gunfire erupted from the upper floor. The SEALs scrambled for cover as bullets rained down on them, it didn't even sound like machine gun fire but rather like one big, long explosion. Most of the men ducked behind the MRAP or the nearest forklift but Richard and another man got behind crates as trying to run for more solid cover meant almost definitely getting shot. To his great luck, whatever was in the crates was stopping, or at least deflecting, the bullets being fired on him.

"POP SMOKE POP SMOKE POP SMOKE!" Victor yelled as he tossed a smoke grenade, other men obliged and after a few seconds the ground floor was covered in a smokescreen.

"CALL IN AIR SUPPORT!" One of the SEALs yelled.

* * *

"Why is it every time we're supporting special forces we're just sitting on our asses?" Karen asked.

"Aw come on Karen... We got to blow up a boat last time we were with these guys" Rachael replied with a smile.

Karen rolled her eyes, "woop-ee."

The radio keyed up, "UPPER FLOOR! RED-" and cut off.

"What was that?" Karen asked.

* * *

"UPPER FLOOR! RED-" Victor was interrupted by an explosion behind him, the force of which knocked him down. He got up, uninjured, and keyed the mic again. "RED FIVE UPPER FLOOR, TAKE THEM OUT!"

"Sir the radio's out! The router is destroyed!" One of the men next to Victor said. Victor's backpack contained a radio frequency router which all of Team Eight's radio broadcasts funneled through. It provided an encrypting feature which kept their communications on the radio secure, but now that it was disabled, none of the SEAL's radios were working.

"TAG THE UPPER FLOOR!" Victor yelled.

* * *

"That was weird..." Rachael said.

"Think they were calling us?" Karen queried.

Rachael keyed her mic "Master Chief copy Red Five." She got no response. "Master Chief copy Red Five" she repeated. "Something's not right."

"They might be in trouble" Karen suggested just before her screen lit up with at least thirty red diamonds on the south and west edges of the target structure. "Scratch that, they're definitely in trouble! Take us in, south side east to west!"

Rachael pushed the collective forward as far as it would go, sending the helo into a nosedive. "Call in their extraction convoy!"

* * *

The SEALs attempted to return fire but the comparatively few shots they got off were vastly overshadowed by the volume of fire they were taking, the smokescreen also meant they were shooting blind. "I'm hit!" One man called out, he was closest to Roy, who pulled him further behind cover and examined the wound. He had been hit in the left forearm about three inches below his elbow, Roy pulled out a tourniquet and wrapped it around the man's arm.

"Where the hell is our air support?!" Another SEAL yelled.

"We're on our own!" The man who told Victor the router was destroyed said.

With all the time that passed, Richard was most amazed by the complete lack of pause or even slowdown of enemy fire, it was as if they were being shot at by several auto turrets with an unlimited supply of ammunition. He had emptied several magazines of ammo blind firing from behind cover, having no idea if he had hit anything, but knowing that somebody had hit at least two floodlights. The situation was beyond desperate, nobody could move from their cover without getting torn to shreds and nobody could even get a bead on whoever, or whatever, was shooting at them. Richard began to wonder of the possibility he wasn't going to walk out of this one. The smokescreen was beginning to lift, which was a double-edged sword at best, he loaded a fresh magazine into his rifle and prepared to peek out of cover and try to effectively shoot at the enemy, nothing else was working. He turned so he was facing directly at the crate, his left hand up again the right edge, his thumb sticking out, he rested the hand guard of his rifle on his thumb and leaned over trying to expose as little of himself as possible. He looked down his optic and spotted a handful of enemy soldiers on the second floor standing in front of a destroyed floodlight, he picked one, and shot three rounds at him, watching the man drop. That got the attention of the other enemies standing nearby, who redirected their fire in Richard's general direction, he had no choice but to duck back behind cover. "God dammit we need air support!" He yelled in frustration.

No sooner did Richard get the words out of his mouth than two massive explosions occurred in the roof of the building on the south side. Red Five strafed by, unloading their dual miniguns onto the upper floor. Once the helo got about a third of the way past the building it fired another missile at the west wall. As the helo disappeared to the west it appeared most if not all the enemy soldiers were down. Hesitantly, the SEALs emerged from their cover.

"That was too close..." Roy said. The men began to regroup, out of breath. "Well, if Wilson was here, he's not anymore, unless he's among the bodies up there."

"We got to check" Victor said, sounding dismayed. "We got to scratch the primary extraction, we can't call for them without radios, we're going to have to make our way to the secondary extraction point and hope Red Five gets the idea... Check the bodies then we go."

The men began to move towards the stairs to the upper floor when three explosions erupted in quick succession, fuel tanks in the southwest corner of the building were compromised and going off, causing the second floor to become unstable. There were more explosions, getting more violent as they went on, the corner of the building shifted in a loud, metal-twisting screech. The structure, or at least part of it, was beginning to collapse.


	13. Chapter 13: Heroes

Chapter 13: Heroes

* * *

"Move out!" Victor yelled, nobody had to be told twice, they stopped in their tracks, turned and ran for the door. Roy was the last one out aside from Richard, who was making his way back to the entrance.

"Come on Rich!" Roy yelled.

"I'm right behind you! Make way!"

Roy saw him coming around a crate as portions of the building collapsed and decided to make his exit, Richard exited the structure just in time to see his team making a beeline for the secondary rally point to the west, turning around the corner of the building. He paused for a second to watch the Apache that had just saved his and his teams lives fly off to the northeast. He turned to follow Roy, who had just rounded the corner on the far end of the structure, Richard got about a dozen steps before he heard an explosion in the distance, he turned to see the Apache on fire and losing altitude fast. He watched it disappear behind the roofline of the buildings. "Oh shit..." He said quietly to himself, he turned and ran towards the crash site.

* * *

"We're hit!" Rachael screamed as her helo fell out of the sky uncontrollably. "Brace yourself!" The chopper's nose hit the ground first, the impact was so hard the fuselage bend just in front of the pilot's seat, spider webbing the cockpit windows. The helo came to rest leaning slightly to the left side. "Aaaahhhhhh... Fuuuuuuck..." Rachael groaned, the pain wasn't as bad as she had feared, but the jolt from hitting the ground was disorienting, it took a moment for her to regain her bearings. "Karen! Karen come on we can't stay here!" She said as she unbuckled her seatbelt, she tried to push herself up to stand on her seat when an unbearable pain shot up her left leg. "AAAAAHHHHH!" She shrieked. "AHH! AHHHHH! AH! OOWWW... Oh fuck!" She looked down to see her left leg had been tangled in the wreckage and it was badly broken, just inches below her knee her leg had been bent to the left at about a thirty degree angle. Rachael's eyes went wide "Oh god..." She began to panic at the terrifying sight and frantically tried to move some of the metal her leg was wedged into, miraculously, a section moved just enough to loosen the grip the helo had on her leg. She adjusted in her seat and took a few deep breaths to mentally prepare for what she had to do, she took hold of her left leg with both hands right above the knee and started pulling with everything she had. The pain was blinding, she screamed at the top of her lungs in agony, in addition to the pain from her leg being mangled, it felt like the outside of her lower leg was being pulled against a sharp object that was penetrating deep into her flesh. After what seemed like an eternity, Rachael finally had her leg free.

After the violent shaking from the pain she had just endured subsided, Rachael opened the canopy of her downed helo, causing some of the glass to fall out of its housing. "Karen come on, we have to get out of here!" She said as she pulled herself out of the chopper, a task made infinitely more difficult with only one good leg. She managed to get herself into a sitting position on the left side of the fuselage and had to use her arms to get her left leg to hang off the outside, she was just about to swing her right leg out when she got hit in her right mid abdomen. It felt like someone had hit her in the stomach with a fifty pound sledge hammer, she fell off her perch and landed hard on her back. Her groans of pain were defeated by the hail of gunfire coming from the buildings one hundred yards away. Rachael's breathing had become rapid and shallow, she looked down in horror at herself to see the gunshot wound and the growing red stain on her flight suit. She rolled onto her left side, trying without thinking to crawl away, "Karen..." She said as loud as she could. She didn't make it an inch before she felt another sledgehammer hit her, this time in the chest.

At that instant, Rachael stopped hearing all outside noise, she rolled onto her back and looked down again, just under her right collarbone was another gunshot wound. She tried to move her right arm to touch it but the appendage didn't respond. She felt her body get cold and her vision blurred, before long, everything went black.

* * *

Richard was in a full blown sprint towards the crash site, as he got close he started hearing gunfire, he stopped once he was right on top of the shots. He crouched and did a quick peek around the corner, six hostiles all shooting at the downed helo from inside a shop, and none of them were paying attention to his position. Richard had his back against the wall, making the helo to his left and the enemies behind him and to the left, he loaded a fresh magazine into his rifle, turned around and leaned around the corner, exposing as little of himself as possible. He fired two shots at the closest enemy, then another two shots at the next closest enemy, the remaining four hostiles hadn't noticed their downed friends so Richard stood up and fired at the next one, still careful to expose as little of his body as he could. As the third one dropped, the other three finally realized they were being attacked from behind, as the fourth hostile turned to fire Richard put three shots into his chest. The remaining two took cover, or so they thought, the low stone wall they jumped behind was of little issue for the 7.62x51, Richard emptied his magazine into the general area he knew them to be, ducked behind the corner and reloaded. He leaned around the corner again, his rifle at the ready, after several seconds of no activity he approached the wall and looked over, they were dead.

Richard sprinted out to the crashed helo, he could see from a distance someone laying on the ground, he ran over to them and knelt down. Richard examined the body, "oh shit..." he said seeing the dire condition the young woman was in. He saw her left leg bent in a disgusting direction, but focused on the two bullet wounds she had on her torso. Richard put his ear to her chest, her heartbeat was extremely weak, but it was there, he cut off her flight vest with his knife and ripped open her jumpsuit to get a better look at the wounds, he then pulled out a package of coagulants, ripped it open and poured it on the two holes. That stopped the bleeding for the most part but she was showing no signs of life, Richard put two of his fingers in her mouth and shoved them down her throat, she gagged on his fingers and coughed violently. "Hey! Can you hear me?" Richard asked, the woman only make gargling noises, Richard put his hand on her jaw, his trigger finger and thumb on her cheeks and put his face close to hers. "Listen, I'm going to get you out of here, I just need you to stay with me!" Her eyes were open only slightly, after a pause she coughed up a glob of blood and groaned, red streaks running down the sides of her mouth.

Richard decided to check on the gunner, another young woman, he unbuckled her seatbelt and she slumped forward, Richard caught her but then saw the back of her head. "Oh good lord..." He had to look away the sight was so horrific, the back of her head had been blown out and a large portion of her brain was exposed, and partially destroyed, there was nothing he could do for her.

Out of the corner of his eye, Richard could see more enemies approaching, he turned his attention back to the woman on the ground. "Hey, I'm going to get you out of here, I promise you you're going home!" He yelled at her as he turned and used the wrecked helo as a rest, he twisted the knob on his optic to zoom in and began firing. He saw one enemy drop then transitioned to another, that one dropped as well. He transitioned again and saw four enemies in his crosshairs, he focused on one and put him down, as he transitioned to the next one the other two had moved beyond his field of view through the optic. Once he dropped the fourth enemy three more appeared, Richard stopped firing and took a breath, lowering his rifle slightly to get a much wider field of view, what he saw was demoralizing. Richard had only four rounds left in his current magazine, and only one spare left for a total of twenty four rounds for his rifle, and there were definitely more enemies bearing down on his position than that. With the only other option being to sit down and be killed or worse - captured, Richard emptied his magazine into another enemy, killing him, then ducked down to reload. He noticed the woman had become non responsive again, he quickly checked for a pulse, and felt nothing. He allowed his head to fall in defeat, "you didn't die alone..." He mumbled. He got back into firing position and put his crosshairs on another enemy but before he could fire he heard a hail of large-caliber automatic fire come from his left, he turned to see his exfiltration convoy rolling up on the crash site, raining bullets on the incoming hostiles. The APC's stopped in between the wrecked helo and the enemies and the medical Humvee stopped in front of helo, shielded by the three APC's.

Victor emerged from one of the vehicles. "GET IN HERE NOW!" He blared, seeming to yell louder than the three fifty caliber machine guns being fired. Richard pulled the gunner out of the chopper and laid her on the ground, he picked up the other woman and slung her over his shoulder, then grabbed the gunner's flight vest by the left shoulder strap and started moving as fast as he could to the medical Humvee, the rear of which had just opened.

The encumbered SEAL moved to the rear of the vehicle and lifted the gunner into the back, one of the two men inside pulled her in while Richard laid the pilot on the floor, after which the other man pulled her in. He was about to step into the vehicle when he was pulled back by a strong force, he fell backward, but not all the way backward, he quickly found out Victor had grabbed hold of the handle on the back of his vest and was dragging him away. There was little Richard could do to resist as Victor threw him one-handed onto the APC ramp "GET IN THERE!" Victor ordered. Richard crawled into the vehicle with the Master Chief right behind, the door was closed and the vehicle started moving. "IF YOU EVER BREAK OFF LIKE THAT AGAIN YOU'RE GETTING LEFT BEHIND, YOU UNDERSTAND?!" Victor yelled.

"THE CHOPPER WAS HIT! I THOUGHT WE DON'T-" Richard was cut off.

"I DON'T CARE WHAT YOU THOUGHT! YOU WERE ORDERED TO EXTRACT, YOU FOLLOW THOSE ORDERS!"

Richard didn't respond, angry at the reaction from Victor he flipped his rifle's safety on and got up into a seat, the ride was silent from there on.


	14. Chapter 14: Life Support

Chapter 14: Life Support

* * *

Still in full battle gear, including his rifle slung across his chest, Richard chased the half dozen or so doctors and nurses who were pushing the stretcher with the pilot he had brought back down the hall. At some point along the ride from the botched mission the medics in the Humvee managed to revive the woman, though it was far from clear if she was ultimately going to survive.

The small army of medical workers turned the stretcher to the right and through a set of double doors, Richard tried to follow but was stopped by a female nurse. "Sir, you can't come in here" she said.

"Is she going to make it?" Richard demanded.

"We're doing what we can" the nurse replied before slamming the door in Richard's face. He took a breath and a few steps back, unsure what to think.

Victor walked up to where Richard was standing, minus his rifle. "Is she going to make it?" He asked surprisingly calm tone.

Richard looked at Victor without moving his head, then returned his eyes to the doors. "They're doing what they can."

Victor nodded, "go get cleaned up."

"You know after what just happened I think-"

"Go get cleaned up!" Victor yelled. "This shit is a mess, it's going all the way up to the Joint Chiefs... Hell it's probably going to get to the President..."

Roy approached the two men, visibly upset. "You mind telling me what just happened? We walked right into a God damn ambush!"

"Both of you hit the showers, now! Make sure you heads are on straight before you write your reports, now go!"

Richard and Roy reluctantly started walking away. "What the hell just happened?" Roy asked.

"Bullshit... That's what."

* * *

Richard had submitted his report before breakfast, which he was currently eating at a table by himself. Before long, one of his colleagues sat down with him. "Hey Chief..." Richard looked at the man, but didn't respond otherwise. "That was bold what you did... You saved that girl."

Richard swallowed his food. "Don't know that yet... She was in rough shape when I found her."

"You brought her home, you brought both of them home, that's big" he said. Again Richard said nothing. "I want you to know sir... After yesterday, I'm honored to be serving under you."

Richard sat back, taking a long pause, eventually he looked at the other SEAL. "With me... You're serving with me, not under me."

The man smiled.

* * *

The next day, Richard was back at the hospital on base and making his way through the halls. He turned a corner just as two women walked out of the third door on the left, one in her senior years, the other middle aged, and crying uncontrollably. "Come on Arella... You need to get some fresh air..." The older woman said, directing the other woman in the proper direction. Richard gave pause as they passed, he looked over his shoulder as they walked away, he wasn't sure what to think, the pain the woman was going through was one he knew all too well. He continued walking towards the door they had just walked out of, he saw the pilot on a bed, an oxygen mask on her face as well as more than one IV in her arms. He also saw a man sitting next to her, middle aged with white hair, Richard's best guess was the man was her father.

"Uh..." Richard began, "am I... Interrupting... Anything?"

The man turned his head with a blank gaze, "who are you?" He asked quietly.

"Um... Chief Richard Grayson, SEAL Team Eight."

The man stood up so fast he nearly knocked the chair he was sitting in over, Richard barely had any time to react the man closed the distance between them so fast. He embraced Richard in a hug so tight he had trouble breathing. "Thank you..." He began, starting to cry. "Thank you so much for bringing my daughter home."

Richard was confused, but returned the hug anyway. _"How does he know what happened?"_ He asked himself. He dismissed it, right now the man needed this, and Richard was not going to deny it to him.

It seemed like they were standing there for hours, but eventually the older man let go and offered Richard a seat. "Chief... I owe you a debt I can never repay..."

"Sir... Um... If I may ask, how do you know what happened?" Richard asked.

The man looked at him quizzically for a moment, then said "oh right..." He turned to his left side and shuffled through a backpack, he pulled out a folder and handed it to Richard.

After he opened it, Richard immediately recognized it as his report of the mission two nights ago, or at least a copy of it. "How did... This is a classified report..." Richard said, looking at the man.

"Sergeant Major Travis Roth, retired... I have some friends."

Richard thought for a moment, this was a battle he chose not to fight and handed the folder back to Travis. "Sir you don't owe me anything... I did what I did because it's my job.

Travis shook his head slowly. "What you did was so far above the call of duty words can't describe it... Give yourself some credit."

Richard paused to think again, then slowly and subtly nodded. "I'm afraid to ask but... How is she?"

Travis turned and looked at his daughter, his face showing hopelessness as he fought back tears. He swallowed, then spoke, "the doctors say it's up to her now... They've done everything they can."

"She's tough..." Richard said, unsure of his own words.

Travis took a breath. "When she was ten years old she fell off her bicycle, hit her head on the pavement... She had a big gash just above her right eye... Did she cry? Nope... Did she scream for me or her mother? Nope... She got up, walked into the house and used a napkin off the kitchen table to wipe the blood off..." Travis said, causing Richard to smile. "The only way we found out anything had happened was Arella... Her mother... Walked into the kitchen while she was doing this, she ended up needing stitches." Richard held onto every word, it was fascinating to hear some backstory and humbling to hear. It reminded him of his own upbringing and how far out of his realm he had travelled in the past four years. "What made you become a SEAL?" Travis asked.

Richard snapped out of his trance, "what?" He asked, slightly embarrassed.

"Going through BUD/S is utter hell, and then the training after that... It takes some serious commitment, serious motivation... What made you sign up?"

Richard told him the story, his internship, his school, his family, he nearly brought himself to tears.

"Those Grayson's... That was your family..." Travis said, Richard nodded. "That was national news for about three days... Until some guy killed an elephant in Africa, then that was all you heard about for two months."

"I didn't even pay attention, I was in a dark place from when it happened to when I enlisted."

"Understandable" Travis said, that was when the two women Richard saw earlier came back in. Travis got up and hugged the younger woman. "Arella, honey... This is the young man that saved Rachael."

Richard stood up, turning to face the woman, she embraced him in a hug, which Richard returned. "Thank you so much" she said, sobbing slightly.

"You're welcome ma'am" Richard said, doing his best to comfort her.

The four sat down, Travis finding a fourth seat for the older woman, now known to Richard as Arella's mother. They exchanged stories, about Rachael's childhood, Richard's, even some of Arella's background, until Victor walked in.

"Had a feeling I'd find you here" Victor said to Richard.

"Sir" Richard said, standing up.

"Sergeant Major" Victor said, saluting Travis.

"At ease Master Chief..." Travis said, standing up. "How have you been Vic?"

"I've been great Travis... Save for a certain recently-promoted Chief of mine causing me A LOT of paperwork... And you know how I hate paperwork" Victor said, looking at Richard.

"I do, though I think given the circumstances you can cut this particular Chief some slack" Travis said.

"Well I suppose I can, seems the Admiral talked to the Joint Chiefs and the President about it... You wouldn't know anything about that now would you?"

Travis raised his hands in the air. "I'm retired Vic... Just because I called my former General on my way here doesn't mean I know anything."

"Uh-huh... Rich we need to talk in my office."

"Yes sir" Richard said as he and Victor walked out.

As they made their way to the front door of the medical building Richard overheard a doctor say something about a "Roth" in the room number Rachael was in. "Hey..." He said to the doctor, "Are you talking about Rachael Roth? The pilot that came in two days ago?"

The doctor looked at him, slightly confused, "well I can't really talk about that..."

Richard took that as a yes. "Is she going to make it?"

"Sir I don't know who you are but that's confidential information..."

"Richard Grayson... Chief Richard Grayson... I'm the reason she's here" Richard informed. "I just want to know if she has a fighting chance."

The doctor shifted in his stance and adjusted his glasses, he sighed. "Mr. Grayson, right now Ms. Roth is laying on a bed on life support... Though if you hadn't stuck your fingers down her throat she'd be laying on a gurney in the morgue... If I were you I'd take whatever victories I could" and with that he walked away.

Richard turned and continued walking with Victor, wondering how the doctor had gotten a hold of a copy of his report since that's the only way he'd know about Richard essentially gagging the girl back to life. "Why do we bother labeling something as classified if just anybody is going to be able to read it?"

Victor shook his head, "as long as you're not the one showing it to them don't worry about it."


	15. Chapter 15: High Value Target

Chapter 15: High Value Target

* * *

Richard sat down in Victor's office, unsure of what was coming. Was the conversation between Travis and Victor simply talk? How far back did the two men go? Was he about to get a stern talking to or a dishonorable discharge? The questions mounted in Richard's head until he shoved them all aside - he knew he did the right thing, the consequences be damned.

"So then..." Victor began, pushing a folder to the side, "There was an issue out there... You disobeyed a direct order."

"And I'd do it again in a heartbeat" Richard declared with an intense glare, "we don't leave people behind."

Victor returned the glare, the intimidation factor between the two could get a lion to back down, but neither man gave an inch. "I hope you don't plan on making a habit out of that" Victor said.

"So long as our people don't make a habit of getting themselves into situations like that."

Victor nodded, "I read your report and it left one question that's been nagging me... How exactly did you plan to get out of there with no backup, no support, no vehicle, and carrying two people?" Richard shifted uncomfortably in his seat, looking down and swallowing. "You didn't think that far ahead did you?"

Richard shook his head.

Victor nodded again, then slid the folder he had pushed aside earlier towards Richard. "That's a debriefing of what happened and the investigation's findings... The short version of the story is the Apache got hit by an RPG."

Richard quirked an eyebrow, "you mean to tell me those choppers can't stand up to a twenty dollar RPG held together by duct tape?"

"Oh they can..." Victor began, "if they get hit on their body, this one hit just above the armor plating and right below the main rotors, the bastard couldn't have got a better hit had he tried... The autopsy of the gunner suggests she suffered that head wound from the explosion... Happened right behind her."

"That was a bit more than a head wound..."

"I saw the body Rich... That hole was big enough for her brain to fall out... I know."

Richard shook his head, the feeling of helplessness was unpleasant to say the least. "So what now?"

"The whole incident... Not just your running off... Got up to the President's desk, it took some arm twisting and I had to call in a favor but I managed to get the heat off you."

Richard wasn't satisfied with the answer. "How is it that there was any heat on me to begin with? I was trying to help our people."

"You said it yourself, we don't leave people behind, some higher ups saw it as you putting the whole team at risk" Victor explained.

Richard sighed, he hadn't thought of it that way, though he still didn't agree with it. "Am I still on active duty?"

"You are... Which is good, because we have another mission."

* * *

The whole team was present for the briefing, the usual routine commenced, but with an unusual opener.

"Gentlemen the past seventy-two hours have substantial... ISIS has been pushed back all the way to Falluja and is surrounded on all sides, we're closing the net on them as we speak" Victor began. Richard nodded, feeling a sense of pride, the feeling of victory washed over him as he listened. "The war is for all intents and purposes over, we're essentially on mop-up duty at this point... But it's a messy job." A video of various gunfights in the street began playing on the screen. "It's street to street fighting in Falluja, you'll find Marines fighting in one spot and a block down the road the Army will be engaging with someone else, which is going to provide the perfect cover for our mission..." A picture of Slade Wilson appeared on screen. "We're going after the crown jewel... Slade Wilson is in his main base of operations with no way out, you'll be inserting via Blackhawk onto the roof... Take down everybody in that building and when you find Wilson, make sure he meets his seventy-two virgins." Richard couldn't help but smile, this was the moment he had been waiting for, the mission he had been waiting for, the whole reason he had enlisted in the first place. "Exfil is going to be the best part of the whole thing, you get to shoot your way out, once Wilson is eliminated you'll be advised of the best direction to head in, questions?" Nobody had any.

* * *

While suiting up Richard had a look of determination on his face, he was in the zone, more so than usual, Roy noticed and approached him. "You okay?"

Richard appeared startled as he quickly turned to face Roy, "yeah, I'm fine... Why?"

Roy shrugged, "I don't know... You just seem a little different this time."

Richard shook his head, confused. "Don't feel any different."

Roy paused, then spoke, "you sure you're not making this too personal?"

Richard slid a rifle magazine into its pouch on his stomach. "I feel like we've had this conversation before... Hatred, killing... Getting revenge."

"And that's fine if it gets you here... But on the battlefield you know you can't make it personal, remember your training."

Richard sighed and leaned against the table in front of him, "not personal until I have my front sight on his chest."

* * *

The helicopter ride was routine and boring for the longest time, loud and cramped with six men crammed inside, until they began their approach of Falluja. They were at about five thousand feet but it was clear as day that the battle below was far beyond intense, tracers, explosions, aircraft of nearly all types, it left mixed feelings among the SEALs. The Blackhawk began to rapidly lose altitude in a controlled descent, "thirty seconds" Victor said over the radio. He was in the first helo with Richard, Roy and three others. "Any last minute advice Chief?" He asked Richard.

Richard slowly looked up, his gaze as intense as the ground war below them, "take them all down."

The helicopter pitched up rapidly, doubling the G-forces inside, it came to a halt twenty feet above the roof and the doors slid open, Victor grabbed the rope and slid down followed closely by Richard. The other Blackhawk got into position and the men inside it made their way down, moving towards the edges of the roof, thirty seconds later the helicopters departed.

Richard made his way over to the only door and grabbed the knob, another man positioned himself on the other side with his weapon at the ready. Richard opened the door and the man entered followed closely by two others. The stairwell was dark with no lights or windows, but still light enough to see. The first man rounded a corner at the bottom of the stairs and fired his rifle twice, as he and the second man disappeared around the corner more gunshots rang out as the SEALs in front engaged with terrorists. Richard came around the corner just as the shots stopped, he saw the bodies of three enemy soldiers laying on the floor, blood splattered across the white walls. As the men stacked up on a door on the left Richard took point, heading to the next door which was on the right, he stepped to the left side as Victor opened the door, the room was empty. The men moved to the next stairwell, Roy being on point, he fired three shots down the stairs before he even reached the second step.

The bottom of the stairs was a T configuration, Roy took the right side while Richard took the left. There was only a single room to the right so Roy "sliced the pie" to clear it, when he looked down into the final section he spotted a teenage boy with something in his hands. He fired three shots and the boy dropped, it was only then that Roy noticed the object he was holding was a hammer. "Dammit" He muttered, "clear on the right!"

Richard was moving down the hallway that followed the outside wall of the building all the way to the corner. He did a quick peek and saw a man at the far end of the hallway, he leaned around the corner and fired three shots, the man went down. Richard stepped to the right side of the first door as Roy got into position, before he could take hold of the doorknob however, the door opened and the person on the other side grabbed Roy's arm and pulled him in. The enemy threw Roy to the ground and got on top of him. Richard dropped his rifle, letting the sling hold it across his front and he placed his right knee at the rear base of the mans neck, he grabbed the mans head and pulled as hard as he could. A cracking sound could be heard and Richard felt the mans neck break, he went limp. Roy turned around as Richard extended a hand to help him up. "Too close" he said. Shots rang out from the hallway, causing the men to jump.

As the pair returned to the hallway they could see that the second door, which was also the only other door in the hallway, was open. Given the position of the two bodies other than the one Richard was responsible for it was a good guess they came from inside the next room. The men stepped over the bodies, making their way to the next room, which the hallway ended into. "Flashbang" Richard said.

Roy stopped and pulled a grenade out of its pouch, he pulled the pin and let the lever fly off, after waiting two seconds he tossed it into the room, bouncing it off the wall. Even through their covered ears the explosion was painfully loud, they entered the room to find two stunned enemies, Roy was on point and took down one while another SEAL took down the other. They kept moving to the next hall, Richard took point once again as Roy and another man stacked up on the first door, just before he got into position on the next door, Richard saw a man at the end of the hallway, he looked at him and immediately recognized the two tone mask "Hindenburg spotted!" Richard yelled as he fired several shots at the man, who ran down the next hall. Richard darted to the end of the hall and turned left, he fired more shots at the fleeing man but he still disappeared around the next corner. "Fuck!" He yelled in frustration as his rifle's bolt locked back, indicating the magazine was empty.

"GO!" Victor yelled, "go after him! Get him!"

Richard ran down the hallway as he loaded a new magazine into his weapon, his teammates right behind him. He made it to the end of the hallway and looked around the corner, it was only a stairway to the ground floor. He went down it and saw Wilson laying on the floor, clutching his right ankle. He pulled a small pistol out of his pocket but before he could get it all the way out Richard fired five shot at him, three hitting just below his neck, one hitting Wilson in the center of his jaw and the last hitting just to the left of his neck. Richard saw him stop moving and approached cautiously, he kicked Wilson's legs apart and gave him a swift toe kick to the groin, getting no reaction, he put a single round into Wilson's third eye just to be sure.

He knelt down and pulled off Wilson's mask, the dead man had no facial features that would set him apart from anybody else, definitely a face that would not stand out in a crowd. "Hindenburg down" Richard said calmly over the radio as the last few of his teammates who were covering the rear caught up.

"Command we are ready for exfil, which way 'we going?" Victor asked over the radio.

It took a few seconds, but a male voice came back. "You're going to want to go northwest, got Army closing in, and you're going to want to move, heavy armor moving in."

"Copy that" Victor replied, "time to move!"

The men moved outside and instantly picked up on the two approaching enemy tanks. "GET DOWN!" Richard yelled as the first tank fired off a round, striking the building right next to one they had just raided. The second tank fired a shot quickly after hitting the target structure. The SEALs scrambled as the two buildings began to crumble and collapse, the first tank fired another shot, causing both structures to collapse. The target building only partially came down while the other structure toppled like a tree, right on top of the SEALs position.


	16. Chapter 16: No Good Deed

Chapter 16: No Good Deed

* * *

Richard, Roy and a third SEAL dove behind a low wall as the buildings around them came down, a massive cloud of dust rose from the debris as particles of brick rained down on them. Coughing, Richard yelled out "GO! Get out of the kill zone!" He did his best to direct his men away from where they were and into cover, they stumbled as they moved behind a building to the south. Collecting themselves, the trio assessed their situation, there was now cover between them and the tanks but it wasn't solid enough to take more than a couple of hits should their operators decide to attack. "Go, further back!" Richard said, pointing south.

"Where the hell are we going?" Roy asked as he started to move, "exfil is the other way!"

"We're cut off, we need to get out of here!" Richard said as he ran, putting distance and structures between them and the enemy. Once they reached what appeared to be a quiet spot they crouched down, surveying their surroundings. "Command we're cut off from Team Eight, advise!" Richard said into the radio.

"Command I got wounded we need backup now!" Victor's voice said.

"Master Chief you need to move northwest, that's the closest friendly forces!" The male voice that was command said.

"Vic we're heading back, going to make our way around!" Richard said.

"Negative Chief Grayson... Keep moving south, you have Marines a click and a half away!" The voice on the radio said.

"Negative command, we're going back... Vic just hang on!" Richard responded.

"Rich we can't wait for you, we have men down, link up with the Marines and get the hell out of there!" Victor ordered.

Richard growled, he wanted to go back and help his friends but while it was plausible, it wasn't practical, he spat on the ground in frustration. "Copy Master Chief..." He let go of the radio, "move out, south, weapons cold!"

* * *

The trio made their way south, staying low to the ground and sticking to structures for cover. Sticking as much as possible to back alleys they made it only a few hundred yards before they came to a wide main road. Roy looked around the corner down the road in both directions, "fuck!" he spat before ducking back into the alley.

"What?" Richard asked.

"Armor convoy inbound, get back!"

The SEALs backtracked into the alley, about twenty feet from the exit to the road and waited. It was only seconds before the enemy convoy started past from west, headed east. The men stayed as still and as quiet as possible as it passed, they counted five vehicles, an APC followed by a tank, then a MRAP, then another tank, and lastly one more MRAP. Seconds after the last vehicle passed they heard an explosion, a close one, come from the east. The men looked at each other with confused expressions, Richard walked over to the alley exit and looked down the street where the convoy went "are you serious?" He asked rhetorically.

"What happened?" Roy asked.

"I think that last MRAP just got disabled by one of their own IEDs" Richard replied.

"No way" Roy said as he peeked around the corner, crouching below Richard. He saw what Richard saw, the MRAP at the back of the convoy leaning slightly to its right side about two hundred yards down the road, not moving, with the rest of the convoy driving away. "Wow... And they just left them behind..."

The third SEAL had by now taken a look for himself. "Honor killing?" He laughed.

"If they didn't have that machine gun on top, yeah" Richard said, "can't even get a clear shot at the guy manning it."

"We can go back and move west, cross the street further away from them" the other SEAL suggested.

"Will take too long" Richard said, looking on the other side of the road. "Command, are the Marines getting any closer to us?"

"Negative Chief, they actually could use your help, they're getting hammered pretty bad."

"Dammit" Richard muttered to himself. As he surveyed the other side of the road he saw an opening to another alley, problem was it was only about fifty yards behind where the enemy MRAP was sitting. Richard noticed a burned out car on the other side of the road about two-thirds of the way between them and the entrance to the other alley. "Alright, this is what we're going to do... You two are going to make your way to that car... Quietly... I'm going to fire off a couple shots, when they return fire you pop smoke and head for the alley."

"And what about you?" Roy queried.

"Use more than one grenade... Go!"

The two men moved out onto the road, staying as low as possible and moving slowly, doing their best not to attract attention. Richard was holding his rifle on the enemy, his optic zoomed in to four times magnification, observing the enemy soldiers as they tended to the damaged vehicle, they seemed to be sufficiently distracted. It seemed to take an eternity, but Roy and the other SEAL eventually made it to the car without incident. "Ready?" Roy asked over the radio.

"Standby" Richard said as stepped out of the alley and picked a soldier, firing three shots. He saw the man fall but wasn't sure if it was a fatal hit. The remaining enemies turned to face him. "Smoke now!" The other SEALs seemed to be a step ahead as the smoke rose right after Richard got the words out of his mouth. "Go! Get in there!" He saw the men jump to their feet and sprint to the alley, Richard ran that way as well behind the smokescreen. He heard the gunfire from the enemy soldiers, but it appeared his plan was working as the shots seemed to be going where Richard was when he shot the first man. They regrouped at the entrance to the alley across the street. "Keep moving."

* * *

It was starting to feel like they had gone too far and somehow slipped past the Marines as they made their way through the winding allies, or it could have just been that the walk was so uneventful. After a bit more walking they began hearing more gunfire. "You're right on top of the Marines, check your fire" said command through the radio.

The three SEALs turned a corner and found a half dozen Marines. "Hey! Friendlies!" Richard yelled as he put his hands up.

The Marines turned, weapons at the ready. "Whoa friendly!" Roy yelled, throwing his hands in the air along with the third man.

"Chief Richard Grayson! SEAL Team Eight, lower your weapons!" Richard yelled as he took a good look at each soldier.

The Marines lowered their rifles and one of them approached, Richard was shocked when he realized it was Toni Monetti. "What are you doing here? Where's the rest of your team?" She asked.

"We don't know, we got separated from them" Roy informed.

Toni looked at the two men quizzically, "what was your mission?"

"You know we can't tell you that" Richard said, lowering his hands, "we were advised to link up with you to extract."

Toni took a step back, "extract? We're not going anywhere until this city falls."

Richard turned his head up in surprise, unsure how to react. Roy decided to chime in, "need some help?"

Toni looked at Roy, her eyes narrow, "no... But you're welcome to come along if you want."

"What do you say Chief?" Roy asked.

"There isn't much left to take, why not?" The other SEAL added.

Richard nodded in agreement, then keyed his mic, "command, we're going to join the Marines, we'll call for extraction."

"Copy that Chief, keep your head on a swivel out there."

Toni allowed a smug smile to appear on her face, "If you're coming with you got it but understand something: I give the orders here and they go for you too if you're coming along, got it?"

"Got it" the three men said.

"Good... Happy to have you with us."

* * *

Less than fifteen minutes passed between when the SEALs and Marines joined up to when they began their fourth noteworthy firefight. Richard was impressed with Toni's performance, she handled herself and her weapon at a skill level noticeably higher than the other Marines she was with, he was happy to have her by his side. Once the latest group of enemies was down they continued down the street. Richard noticed what appeared to be a deli type shop specializing in American food, "really?" He muttered.

A young Marine, probably not even old enough to legally drink yet was on point. He rounded a corner followed by his colleagues, then fell to the ground, a bullet hole to his neck right below his adam's apple. The soldiers took cover as Richard pulled the man back around the corner. Assessing the wound it was clear that while it was definitely a small caliber he was hit with, the bullet had severed man's spine on its way out, while he was still alive there was no way to help him.

As the Marines and SEALs engaged with this new group of hostiles another young Marine went down, this time with a hit to the abdomen. "Smoke!" Roy yelled as he dragged the man out of the line of fire, the third SEAL throwing a smoke grenade.

"Dammit!" Toni yelled in frustration, "fall back, command we need exfil!" She paused, Richard assumed she was listening to orders from her higher ups. "Copy, convoy inbound, five minutes..." She turned to the soldiers still standing, "fall back, defensive positions!"

"The deli!" Richard yelled, believing it provided a reasonable defensive position. He lead the group back, carrying the now dead Marine on his shoulders while Roy carrier the wounded man. They broke into the deli, Richard placing the dead man on the floor while Roy placed the other on a table. Richard lowered the blinds and sat on the floor as the others tended to the wounded Marine. He looked through the small gap in the blinds and saw a second group of enemy soldiers pour out from across the street, they stopped in the middle of the road and faced the deli, raising their weapons. Richard's eyes went wide as saucers, "GET DOWN!" He screamed as he turned to the right and dropped to the floor on his side, no sooner did he actually get down than a hail of gunfire erupted through the front window and wall. Richard felt a bullet graze his left shoulder and less than a second later a hard pounding feeling in his left thigh. He cried out in pain and clutched his thigh with his left hand.

The gunfire continued, but stopped coming into the deli, the extraction convoy Toni had called for had just arrived. Toni crawled over to Richard, whose left leg was now drenched in blood. "Rich! Oh shit that's bad!" She said as she pulled a tourniquet out of a pouch, tying it right below Richard's hip. She helped him to his feet, Richard was already feeling lightheaded as Toni put his arm around her neck, she was able to lead him outside as soldiers from the convoy entered the deli.

"Roy..." He uttered, his voice labored as his breath got heavy.

"Come Rich we need to get you to a doctor."

Richard's eyes rolled back into his head as he began to lose consciousness, he collapsed, taking Toni down with him. Toni cursed, but then pulled the badly injured SEAL up and put him over her shoulders.

Richard blacked out.


	17. Chapter 17: The Life You Save

Chapter 17: The life you save

* * *

Falluja fell. Every ISIS soldier fought to the bitter end, none going down without a fight, no matter how fruitless. When it was over, the Army, Navy and Marines stood together as they raised a flag post in a display reminiscent of February 23rd, 1945 at Iwo Jima. The dead were gathered, American servicemen being handled like fine china while ISIS soldiers were piled into dump trucks. Those with minor wounds were treated on sight while those with serious injuries, like Richard, were stabilized and transported to the hospital back on base.

* * *

Richard's left eye opened slightly, his right eye seemingly stuck closed. He felt weak, barely able to lift his arms or legs, he could tell he was on his back on a soft surface but he could barely move. Minutes passed, he now had both eyes open but still felt like a newborn puppy, "Fuck... What the hell?" He muttered slowly and quietly.

Richard heard movement to his right, he turned his head to see a woman had just walked into the room, a nurse judging by her attire. "Finally awake?" She said.

"Wh-... Where am I?" Richard asked, nearly losing his breath.

"You're in the hospital... You've been out for quite a while, some of us were wondering if you were every going to wake up" the woman explained.

Richard turned his head back to face the ceiling, the weak feeling was in some ways worse than pain, like having an itch you can't reach. "How long?"

The nurse turned to the sink and began washing her hands. "How long have you been out? Eleven days."

"What?" Richard said in disbelief.

"Yeah... You were in real bad shape when you got here, we almost lost you, had to do an emergency blood transfusion to keep your body functioning" she said.

Instead of a clearer picture being painted, Richard only seemed to be getting more confused. "What?" He couldn't think of anything else to say.

"You lost damn near three pints of blood..." She said as she walked over to the bed, "that bullet almost completely severed your artery, you were losing blood in waterfalls... Your body started to shut down and we had to stop your heart just to get the bleeding under control."

Richard choked up in surprise "stopped my heart?!"

"Your heart was going to stop one way or another..." The nurse said, checking Richard's pulse, "may as well do it the way that might keep you alive." Richard took a deep breath, unsure what to think. "Pulse is good..." She said as she turned her attention to the machines behind the bed.

"What about Falluja?" Richard asked, "please tell me their pulse isn't good."

The nurse turned to Richard with a smug expression. "They don't have a pulse."

"We won?" Richard asked, looking back at the woman.

She nodded, "you won, the war is over... It's time for you to rest" she turned to leave. As she exited the room she turned to her left and looked down. Richard heard a female voice but couldn't make out what it was saying. "He is, you can go in but he's very weak."

"Thank you" Richard heard the other woman say as the nurse left. He saw a person in a wheelchair wheel themselves into the room, it took a moment, but he could see that it was the pilot from their failed mission weeks ago. "Hey" she said with a smile.

Richard hesitated, he'd never been so unsure of himself in his life as he was now. "Uh... Hey..." He said, almost asking.

She wheeled herself next to the bed, her right side next to his. They stared at each other for several seconds before she spoke again, "I guess I should introduce myself... Rachael Roth, I'm the girl from the helicopter."

Richard blinked, "That ambush... You were our air support."

Rachael nodded, "that mission went about as badly as can be... I should be dead... And I would be if it wasn't for you."

Richard swallowed, remembering the night in question, seeing the helicopter go down, finding the two women, keeping the incoming enemies at bay... War is hell, but that night was a different animal. "You go us out first."

"That's what we were there for... But why didn't you call us as soon as you got pinned down?" Rachael asked.

"Our communications got knocked out, though at the time I didn't know that, I didn't figure it out until after I saw you go down and went after you" Richard explained.

Rachael sighed, "why did you go after us? That was a suicide mission."

"We don't leave people behind." Rachael turned her eyes in thought, wondering if she would have done the same. "I just wish I could have helped your partner."

Rachael swallowed and choked slightly, remembering Karen. "Yup" she meeped.

The grief she was showing was so obvious a blind and deaf person could sense it. "You and she were close?" Richard asked, knowing the answer.

Rachael nodded, knowing she couldn't speak without her voice cracking up. She took a few deep breaths, pulling herself together. "Her parents came to visit me after I woke up... I can't imagine what they're going through, and to fly half way across the world just to visit me..."

"You're part of the family" Richard interrupted.

Rachael turned her eyes back to Richard, "I guess."

There was a long pause, Richard noticed her left leg was in a cast. "Your leg was broken really bad..."

Rachael looked down, "actually, it wasn't broken as bad as it looked, the break was clean, all the doctors had to do was realign it and put a cast on... Just need to wait until the bones fuse back together."

"And what about the gunshots?"

Rachael diverted her eyes again, becoming visibly upset. "The one to my chest severed all the tendons to my right arm... Those have healed, but the one to my stomach..." She choked up.

Richard was a bit lost, he couldn't think of what a shot to the abdomen would do short of blood loss as there were no vital organs where she got hit. "What happened?"

Rachael sniffed up and cleared her throat, "the doctors think I won't be able to have children" she spat out, struggling to hold back tears.

Richard's heart dropped, a feeling he rarely got before and never because of something that didn't directly affect him. "I-I'm sorry..."

A tear escaped Rachael's left eye, she wiped it away as she sniffed up, taking deep breaths again. It took longer for her to put her head back on straight this time. "What about you? You got hit in the leg?"

Richard turned his head back to the ceiling, "I just found out myself... Got hit in the left thigh, I guess it nicked an artery or severed an artery or something, lost a lot of blood... Supposedly I was out for eleven days."

Rachael nodded slowly, "I woke up four days ago, had surgery to fix my arm... My dad told me about you and I saw the report..." Richard turned back to find Rachael looking right at him with an expression of both sadness and thankfulness. She placed her hand on Richard's, "thank you Chief... For saving my life."

Richard looked down at their hands, he felt pride but a different kind of pride, not like when he had rescued hostages or gotten one of his colleagues out of a jam. He couldn't explain it, it just felt different.

"Am I interrupting something?" A familiar male voice said.

Richard and Rachael looked to the doorway to find Victor standing in it. "Master Chief" Richard said.

"Glad to see you're awake Chief, nurse tells me you're going to be weak for a good while though, something about bone marrow needing to regenerate or something" Victor said, walking into the room.

"Or something" Richard said.

"You must be Corporal Rachael Roth..." Victor said, standing by the table, "I'm glad to see you're recovering nicely."

"Pleased to meet you sir" Rachael said. They didn't seem to know each other, which Richard found strange given the exchange he witnessed between Victor and Travis.

"You two have never met?" He asked.

Rachael looked at him, confused, Victor spoke. "No... No we haven't, but I've known about you for a long time Rachael."

Rachael looked back at Victor, even more confused. "How?"

"I met your father about thirteen years or so ago, we worked together a lot" Victor explained.

"And he never had you over? He's had a lot of his military friends over" Rachael informed.

"I was invited more than once... Just always happened to be a bad time unfortunately..." Victor began, "but I was here for something else... Well actually that something else wasn't even you Rich, but I always ask about my men when I'm here."

"Glad to know I'm at the top of your priority list Vic..." Richard said with a smile, he knew how it was.

Victor smiled, "I do have good news for you though, you're going to like it... You've been recommended for the Medal of Honor." Rachael's eyes went wide as she looked back at Richard.

After a pause, Richard asked, "why?"

"For bringing Corporal Roth home, what you did that night was far and away the bravest thing I've ever seen anybody do in my entire career..." He turned to Rachael, "and it wasn't for nothing."

"Wow..." Rachael said, her eyes still wide.

Richard turned to the ceiling once again, the emotions were overwhelming, relief, pride, guilt, confusion... He didn't know what to say. "Thank you sir..." He eked out, feeling it as being far less than adequate. After a long pause of awkward silence he thought of a question. "What happened to Roy, O'Malley and the Marines?"

Victor's smiled disappeared instantly and he took a step back. "You mean in the kitchen?"

"Yeah."

Victor cleared his throat. "I read Sergeant Monetti's report as well as the findings from others... Um..." He paused, not wanting to break the news. "Rich I... I hate to say it but... Roy and O'Malley... And the Marines... They didn't make it."


	18. Chapter 18: Medal of Honor (Conclusion)

Chapter 18: Medal of Honor (Conclusion)

* * *

Richard sat at his kitchen table, reading Toni's report for the fourth time. He had read it once at the hospital at the back end of his recovery and twice on the twelve hour flight back to the states, along with other applicable reports he had managed to get his hands on. When he had yelled for everybody to get down after seeing the group of enemy soldiers train their weapons on their position Roy, O'Malley and the remaining Marines were trying to help the wounded Marine, a Mr. Donald Franklin, in the center of the room. Toni was off to the side checking the perimeter, just barely out of the line of fire. With Richard just below and Toni just to the side the other soldiers were shredded to pieces by the enemy fire, none survived.

Toni sat down across from Richard with a cup of coffee. "Rich you've been reading that thing over and over... It isn't going to change."

"Just trying to get a full understanding is all" Richard replied without taking his eyes off the paper.

"There isn't much to understand" Rachael said, sitting down also with a cup of coffee, "they didn't get down fast enough... That's it."

"Or I didn't recognize the threat fast enough" Richard suggested.

Rachael stared at him, concern painted all over her face. "Don't think like that... You didn't do anything wrong... It wasn't your fault."

"Rich..." Toni began, "I was the leader out there, it was my responsibility."

"It was my idea."

"And I could have overridden you... People die in war... We can't blame ourselves because the pieces fall where they do, things just happen" Toni said.

Richard put the papers down and sighed, "it's one thing to lose people... It's even one thing to make a decision that leads to their deaths... But it's something else when you have seven men go down at once in the eleventh hour... And you can't even give any of them open-casket funerals."

The trio paused, Toni closing her eyes, she thought she had gotten past the grief, but she attended each of those closed-casket funerals and had to endure comforting parents, siblings, wives, girlfriends, small children and in one case a fiancé who had found out only the day before the incident she was pregnant and hadn't even told the father yet, who would never see their son, brother, husband, boyfriend or father again. It hit home with her more than she realized at the time. "We can't dwell on it... We need to move on."

"She's right..." Rachael said, "I miss Karen every day, but she wouldn't want it to consume me... And I know Roy wouldn't want that for you either..."

Richard looked up, looking Rachael square in the eye. It was a long pause of awkward silence before he nodded and spoke, "you're right."

Another long pause of awkward silence passed before Rachael spoke again. "Rich... Have you thought about getting out?"

Richard looked at her, confused, "what do you mean?"

"Getting out of the military... Retiring."

"Why would I want to do that?" Richard queried, "I'm able-bodied, fully capable, why would I want to just quit?"

"The mission is over, I'm out once my contract is up" Toni said.

"I am too... It's time to help people closer to home" Rachael added.

"You could go into law enforcement... Or private security, you'd still be helping people" Toni suggested.

Richard found a spot on the table and stared at it, the idea was temping, though he still felt his skills were more suited for the theater of war. "Something to think about" he said.

Rachael and Toni nodded. "So when does the flight leave?" Rachael asked.

"One o'clock" Toni replied, "are you excited Rich?"

Richard looked at Toni, a blank expression on his face for a moment, then a smile, "you bet."

"You know only like four or five Navy SEALs have ever been awarded the Medal of Honor? You're about to join an exclusive group" Rachael said excitedly.

"It's an accomplishment, something I doubt I'll be able to replicate in the future..."

Rachael laughed sarcastically, "hopefully you won't have to."

"Well don't get your ass shot down again" Toni quipped.

"Oh... Fuck you" Rachael said with a laugh.

"Yeah if that happened again I'm not sure I'd go after you again, 'cause obviously you didn't learn the first time" Richard joked.

Rachael looked at him with her eyes wide and jaw agape, she smacked Richard jokingly. "I'll remember that next time you walk into a wall of gunfire!"

The three laughed, it was good times with plenty of reason to celebrate. Their light moment was interrupted by Richard's phone, caller ID showed it was Victor. "Master Chief" Richard greeted.

"Hey Rich, how you adjusting to life back home?" Victor asked.

"Hard to say, only been home a day."

"True that" Victor said, "how's your recovery coming?"

"Still using the cane for some extra balance, about ninety-five percent I'd say" Richard said, "how's everybody else?"

"Well you know everybody just had minor injuries, Gonzalez is still waiting on his leg to heal up but he'll be fine."

"That's good to know" Richard said.

"It is" Victor agreed, "I just landed in DC and I'll be at your ceremony tomorrow, when are you flying in?"

"We'll be in this afternoon."

"Can catch some dinner if you want, I know a real nice Italian restaurant in town" Victor offered.

Richard looked at his two female visitors, he knew at least one of them would appreciate Italian food. "That sounds good, I'll call you when we land."

* * *

Richard was used to big airplanes, large widebodies that actually had some level of comfort in coach. The small by comparison Airbus A319 sat only one-hundred twenty-four people and felt like a cattle car, he swore the first class seats in it were the same size as the coach seats on the widebodies he knew so well as he walked past them disembarking. As promised, he notified Victor of their arrival, he said he would pick them up in two hours.

Toni opted for her own room, leaving Richard and Rachael by themselves in another. Richard didn't even bother unpacking, he only took his shoes off and laid down on the bed closest to the bathroom and grabbed the TV remote. "Planning to watch anything good?" Rachael asked.

"Nah, but who knows, maybe I'll find something" Richard replied.

Rachael nodded, "well, I guess I'll get ready then."

"For dinner?" Richard asked, "Vic's not going to be here for another hour and a half at least." Rachael smiled smugly at Richard as she disappeared into the bathroom, her small suitcase in tow. Richard shrugged, "women." He flipped through the channels, every news station was going on and on about the war doing recaps and simulations, interviews and slapped-together documentaries, it seemed like every other station was doing old war movies except for HBO which had Bill Mahar's talk show on where he was ranting about how the US Military committed a genocide against "innocent Muslims." He finally found a channel showing reruns of the old Batman cartoon from the nineties.

Rachael emerged from the bathroom, not that Richard noticed. "Chief" she said quietly. Richard turned to her and his eyes went wide, she was wearing a purple G-string and matching triangle top that only covered her nipples, offering no actual support for her breasts, not that she needed it. She slowly walked over to Richard, "I owe you" she said as she got on the bed, straddling him. He was speechless, if there was anything further away from his mind he couldn't think of it. She leaned forward and gave his left ear a light nibble, "don't think... Just go with it" she whispered.

Richard hesitated, but he put his hands on her hips, feeling her warm body. She pulled his shirt over his head, revealing his amazingly chiseled chest and stomach, tossed it aside and leaned forward again, encouraging skin-to-skin contact. Eventually she sat back up and removed her bra, then began undoing Richards pants. He sat up, putting his arms around her body and locked lips with her. Things go heavier, Richard spun them over so Rachael was on her back, her shoulder-length hair sprawled about as he stood up and removed his pants, he returned his lips to hers as he fondled her firm breasts. Eventually he moved his hands down and gripped the small sides of her panties, pulling them off her. He stepped to the edge of the bed and pulled her closer, then gently slid himself into her. He leaned forward and began to kiss her again, she wrapped her legs around his waist and her arms around his back as he pumped in and out of her. Eventually he stopped and picked her up, turned around and sat back down on the bed, he gripped her buttocks and lifted and lowered her along his rock hard shaft. Eventually Rachael pulled her mouth away and buried her face in Richards left shoulder, her grip on him tightening as Richard increased the pace. Both of them started breathing heavier as the minutes passed. Before long, Richard could feel Rachael's vaginal walls spasm as she pulled her head back "oh my God!" She exclaimed as Richard increased his pace even more. She began to tremble as the pleasure was almost too much, only seconds later did Richard finish with a long moan.

The two were sweating profusely and breathing heavy, Rachael more so than Richard, as they laid down on the bed, she rolled to his side. "That was... Amazing..." Richard said.

Rachael smiled, "You're amazing..."

The two turned their heads to look at each other in almost perfect symmetry, Rachael put her hand on Richard's, "I hate to ruin the moment..." Richard began, "but we really do need to get ready, we have an hour if we're lucky."

Rachael nodded and got up, heading for the bathroom, she stopped right before entering and looked at Richard who was still laying on the bed. "Well?"

"Well what?"

"You just got me all sweaty and gross... You going to just lay there or are you going to clean me up?" She asked before disappearing into the bathroom. Richard could hear her turn the shower water on, he smiled as he got up and walked into the bathroom.

* * *

Of all the stressful situations Richard had experienced in his life, this one took the cake. He stood behind and to the left of the President as he spoke about the details, if they could be called that, of the mission he was being honored for. "Chief Grayson, thinking only of his fellow soldiers, rushed into enemy territory..." It took serious willpower for Richard to not roll his eyes, he knew they were already well into enemy territory long before the helo went down. He waited patiently, scanning the audience as the President spoke. He saw Rachael sitting next to her parents, Victor sitting just behind them and Toni off to the side. It was awkward for him to say the least. "And it is because of that bravery that I am proud to present the Medal of Honor to you Chief Grayson..." The President said before turning from the podium and walking towards Richard. He got behind him and put the Medal around his neck, "meet me in the Oval Office after this" he whispered just before walking back in front of Richard. "Secret Service knows you're coming" he whispered as he shook his hand, Richard only nodded, unsure what to expect.

The photo op ended and Richard's friends appeared confused when he followed the President instead of taking the main exit. As the two men walked into the Oval Office Richard couldn't help but be bewildered, not only was he killing himself wondering what the President wanted, but room he was in added to the shock factor exponentially. "You wanted to see me sir?"

"Yes... Very much so Chief..." The President began, "I've read your file, you have an amazing service record." Richard blinked. "Someone with your skills, experience and resolve is just the kind of person I'm looking for for a project I'm putting together..."

"Project?"

"Yes, unfortunately I can't get into much detail, but I can tell you it's something right up your alley."

Richard blinked again, "I'm not sure I follow sir..."

The President smiled, "well that's to be expected... The short version is I need someone like you to lead a task force, it's outside the military and is completely black, classified as top secret." He pulled a folder out of his desk, "all the details are in here... But I can't give it to you unless you're on board."

Richard sighed, "with all due respect sir, I need more to go on if I'm going to agree to anything... But truth be told I'm thinking it's time to get out of the military anyway..."

The President shifted in his seat, "I understand where you're coming from Chief and I respect that... But I also know what kind of person you are, you want to help people, make a difference in the world, take down the bad guy... And I can promise you that this is an opportunity to do that."

"I don't know sir, I really just think it's time to hang up the rifle and go back to being a civilian."

The President looked disappointed. "Chief I really would like you to reconsider... The world needs more Richard Grayson's and it needs them to do what they do best..." He stood up and picked up the folder, holding it out for Richard to take, "don't let your talents go to waste."

Richard looked at the folder, then turned his eyes to the President, then back to the folder. A long pause passed before he grabbed it.

* * *

Well, I certainly hope everybody enjoyed my little story, and yes I do have a sequel in mind if people are interested, let me know what you all thought!


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